


Rebirth: Fire and Wood

by Metronome_I_Hear



Series: Rebirth: Fire and Wood [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Because I adore Hashirama's and Madara's canon friendship, Because I am incapable of writing something without it, Because too much angst is horrible, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Epic Friendship, Fear makes people irrational, Fluff, Gen, Hashirama and Madara both die at the Valley of the End, Hashirama and Madara have their own secret code, Hashirama and Madara try helping people, Hashirama is disappointed in the village, Hashirama reborn as Naruto, He's not a bad person, I can't write fight scenes very well, It doesn't always turn out well, Just really bitter, Madara doesn't like the village, Madara reborn as Sasuke, Madara reflects on his mistakes, Madara's favorite people are Hashirama and Itachi, No Bashing, None - Freeform, So don't expect many of them, They got bored a lot while building Konoha, They may or may not have spent most days running from paperwork, This story focuses on character development, nada - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10058504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronome_I_Hear/pseuds/Metronome_I_Hear
Summary: Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara died at the Valley of the End. It should have ended there, but it didn't. Instead, they were reborn as Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. Instead, they changed the shinobi world just one more time. AU





	1. Chapter 1

Uchiha Madara once went to attack Konoha with the Kyuubi at his side. He was confronted by Senju Hashirama and they fought at what would one day be known as the Valley of the End. The battle was vicious—lasting hours upon hours, with the constant clanging of weapons and calls of ninjutsu—fire against wood—sounding the entire length of the battle. It changed the landscape forever, carving out a valley where there had once only been forest. The battle would go to such proportions that those who heard of the battle years later would think some of the feats achieved during this battle to be nothing more than fairy tales.

The battle was also the place where two great shinobi lost their lives.

The Valley of the End was named such because it was the place where both Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara lost their lives in one final fight against one another. However, their story didn’t end there. It continued onwards, down the lines of their descendants.

One day, many years after the two shinobi first died, they would live again as Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. One day, the two would change the shinobi world forever just one more time.

.

.

.

Hashirama swung back and forth on the swing, idly listening to the sounds of children running around him as he did so. No one came over to bother him and he didn’t try to go over and speak with anyone else and everyone seemed okay with that.

( _ Hashirama was not okay with that _ )

Being left alone allowed him time to think and he had always appreciated being given time where he could allow his thoughts to wander. It was time he often allocated to reflection, improvement, and relaxation. All three were very important things, and he rather enjoyed letting his mind drift after a long day of training, paperwork, and meetings.

Only these days he didn’t do any of that.

( _ Where was he? This wasn’t home—This wasn’t the valley—Madara, what happened to Madara—Mito, please come here, he needed her, what had happened to her—Why was he a baby?  _ **_He wasn’t supposed to be a baby_ ** )

Somehow, Hashirama had been reincarnated. He didn’t know how or why, only that he had woken up one day in a body that wasn’t his own.

The return of memories had started slowly—nothing more than a fleeting emotion or a face he couldn’t quite remember—and had quickly progressed until memories started showing up at odd times throughout the day. His new body had been just a month or two more than a year old when ‘Naruto’ remembered that he was ‘Hashirama’ and he had spent much of his time since then wondering how that was possible.

Hashirama knew he had died. He knew this. He remembered the battle that killed him all too well.

( _ Trees shifted as great gales blew past. The ground crashing, grinding,  _ **_breaking_ ** _. The cracking of rock being broken, roots growing larger and larger as monsters made of wood fought a monster made of flesh. The burning, acidic chakra of the Kyuubi  _ **_consuming_ ** _ the air, the madness shining all too brightly in Madara’s sharingan eyes _ )

He remembered running Madara through with his sword.

( _ His armor was broken and water crashed around them. The earth they had torn up was a scar in the land. The katana was warm and familiar in his hand, even as blood dripped down the blade and ran in rivers across his skin _ )

Madara had fallen to the ground, choking on blood, and Hashirama had fallen next to him. They had died side by side and they should have stayed that way. That should have been the end.

( _ It wasn’t _ )

He vaguely remembered the feeling of falling before a sensation similar to floating, but everything went black not long after and he remembered nothing of what happened after. The next time he was conscious, he had already been reborn without the slightest idea as to how or why.

Three years had passed since he had woken up. Three years of living at Konoha’s orphanage under the care of the matrons there. They didn’t like him—rather they didn’t like  _ Naruto _ —very much. They stayed away, encouraged the other children to play with other people than him, and cringed at times when interacting with him. Fear, Hashirama could see that in their eyes, and he despaired because of it.

Hashirama was no stranger to hatred. Everyone who had lived before Konoha’s founding knew hatred as intimately as a lover and Hashirama had no doubt that many shinobi today knew it just as well. They saw it in the way they killed their enemies, knew it in the way they vowed revenge on their family’s murderers, understood it in the way that Shinobi lived and thrived and breed off hatred. He knew people hated for a wide variety of reasons—both stupid and valid—and he had his suspicions as to why the villagers looked at him so.

The Kyuubi had been killed. Or, at least that was what everyone said. Hashirama knew all too well that the Kyuubi was not a being that could be killed, that it could only be sealed. The Kyuubi attack had happened on the same day as his birthday. Everyone watched him with distrust and fear.

Hashirama knew better than to believe in coincidences.

( _ “Fox,” they whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. “It has to be. There’s no other way for that child to be the way he is.” _ )

So yes, he suspected the reason why they feared him, and he couldn’t blame them. The people working at the Orphanage had seen firsthand exactly how many people had been orphaned that day and should anything go wrong with whatever had sealed the Kyuubi away, they would be the first to go by mere proximity.

A child tripped and a women—most likely her mother given their similar appearances—ran over to take care of the girl. How long had it been since Hashirama’s mother had done the same for him? A hundred years, perhaps, given the time that had passed between when he had died and when he had been reborn. Hashirama missed his mother and his family.

He hadn’t seen or sensed any members of his family in Konoha. It worried him that there were no Senju to be found, especially since they were such a large clan. They couldn’t have disappeared for no reason, and the clan had still been going strong when he had died. Hashirama had dug around in the library and found there had been a number of happenings since his death that could have caused it. Among them was the two major shinobi wars had occurred after the first one Hashirama had fought in. Had the Senju perished in one of those? Or was there a different reason for their disappearance?

( _ Two shinobi wars… Konoha had been founded to inspire peace, and yet there had been three shinobi wars in the span of less than a century _ )

History wasn’t all bad, however. The technological revolution that Tobirama had inspired with his rampant inventing during the early years of Konoha’s founding had taken off. A number of changes had been made to living conditions, medicine, weaponry, and other technology. The prototype fire extinguisher Tobirama had invented as a joke for Uchiha Kagami was now a presence in every building. The village was powered by electricity, candles had been replaced with light bulbs, air conditioners made the summer heat that much more bearable, and a number of other improvements had occurred. Leadership, too, had changed. After Tobirama’s time as Hokage, there had been two others. A Sandaime and a Yondaime.

Hashirama leaned back and swung higher, a smile gracing his features as wind whipped through his blond hair. When he had been young he could only ever dream of a village like Konoha existing, and now the village had lived under a Yondaime Hokage. It was amazing to look back and see just how far the world had come.

There was a few things that Hashirama would change to make the situation better, but for the most part life was good. Hashirama could tolerate the mistrustful glances of the townsfolk and growing up a second time with a different name and appearance if it meant seeing the way that the village he and Madara founded had flourished since his death. He just missed some of his old friends.

And that was when he felt it.

( _ His chakra simmered with a soft heat like embers off low burning coals. It was subtle and powerful, ready to burst into a roaring flame. It spoke of cold winter nights spent reading by a fire and of adrenaline running through his lifeblood veins during a battle of a lifetime _ )

“Madara…”

Hashirama slowed the swing to a stop and looked over at the entrance to the park, just in time to see the appearance of a pair of brothers. The taller of the two looked to be around 9 or 10 summers old, the younger appearing to be perhaps 4. Both were Uchiha, ( _ Coloring like a night time sky—black hair and eyes, skin a pale paper white—then their eyes glowed redredred, the same color as blood _ ) and the elder in appearance of the two wore a Konoha headband, signifying he was at least a gennin.

The younger boy was the one who bore Madara’s Chakra.

He looked healthy and happy and was smiling up at the elder of the two in body ( _ and wasn’t that a surprise? _ ) His hair was the same inky black that he remembered, though it lay flatter against his head than it had in their last life. He wore the same clothing that Hashirama often spotted Uchiha children in these days; a simple high collared black shirt with the Uchiha insignia sewn at the collar and white shorts.

Hashirama watched with slight disbelief as an unreadable expression passed over the boy’s face. He turned to where Hashirama was sitting dumbstruck on the swings with wide, surprised eyes.

The two of them stayed like that for a moment, trapped in a limbo of how-why-surprise-disbelief- _ hope _ . A bird chirped somewhere in the trees near them, and the sound broke whatever spell the two of them had been under. Hashirama steeled his resolve and stood from his seat on the swings, determination flooding his veins.

He walked over to the two Uchiha—to where they had paused at the entrance—hiding his nervousness with an expertise only found with decades of experience as a Shinobi. Once before them, he grinned his trademark grin and stuck out his hand in a friendly manner. “Hello! My name is Uzumaki Naruto! Who’re you?”

The other’s chakra flickered for just a moment and Hashirama spotted recognition in his eyes when he took Hashirama’s hand. “Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Nice to meet you, Sasuke! Want to be friends?” Hashirama looked Madara in the eye, desperate almost to see the man before the madness had struck him there.  _ Please _ , he prayed, let this be the person who dreamed of peace and not the man Hashirama had killed at the Valley of the End.

“Sure,” Madara said, and Hashirama felt hope bubbling up inside him at the response. “I’ll be your friend.”

( _ I’m back _ )

Hashirama grinned wider. “Great! Want to go play?”

( _ Welcome home _ )

Madara looked up at his brother, “Nii-san?”

“Of course, Sasuke.” Madara’s brother smiled at the two of them, something resembling amusement shining in his eyes.

Without wasting another moment, Hashirama grabbed Madara’s wrist and dragged him over to the sandbox. Since Hashirama had abandoned the swings, the children once at the sandbox had migrated over there, leaving the pit mostly empty, bar a single stray child sitting on the far end. He kneeled down and started shifting the sand, gathering it up and attempting to build something with it. Madara joined him and the two of them casually angled their bodies so that no one would be able to read their lips.

“Madara?” Hashirama ventured.

A smirk. “Hashirama.”

Hashirama let out a quiet, relieved laugh. “The one and only!” he joked, looking over at his friend ( _ he had his friend back _ ) and smiling. “I’m glad you’re back...”

“Hn.”

Hashirama pouted. “I say something like that, and all you say is ‘Hn’. Don’t you have anything else to say to me after our deaths?”

Another smirk. “Only you would be so sentimental,” Madara said. To anyone else, it would have sounded dismissive or condescending, but Hashirama could hear the carefully hidden fondness in his tone. Madara had missed this just as much as Hashirama had, and that warmed Hashirama’s heart.

“Have you any idea how we ended up like this?” Hashirama asked, without needing to expand upon the question. Madara shook his head, skin tightening around his mouth as he frowned. Hashirama sighed in response. “I thought so…”

He sat back on his heels and looked up at the village skyline visible passed the chain link fence and over the trees. The sun was only just starting to set—It was getting later in the day—and the park’s placement on a hill allowed for an excellent view of the village. Shinobi jumped across rooftops, civilians meandered through the marketplace and the various districts, Inuzuka dogs barked in the far off distance, and it seemed like the entire world was at peace.

Hashirama smiled at the scene, so different from what he once might have seen in his youth. The people here were so carefree, it was wonderful to see. They were lucky to have been reborn in a time of peace.

“I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it,” he said, glancing over at where Madara sat watching him. “Now, won’t we?”

Madara looked at him strangely for a moment before snorting and shaking him head. He was smiling, though, so Hashirama counted this one as a win. “I suppose we will.”

They went back to watching the village in silence and Hashirama relished in the feeling of the wind in his hair and the presence of a familiar chakra by his side.

Things weren’t perfect, but they never had been and in that moment Hashirama wouldn’t trade this for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up in his new life didn’t happen immediately. There was no sudden burst of consciousness—one moment thinking he was a baby and the next finding he was Madara. It wasn’t like waking up from a dream either—the slow wishful wakefulness after a good night's sleep that keeps one’s eyelids heavy and gives one’s mind a tired restfulness. Waking up, perhaps, wasn’t even the best of terms to describe remembering everything he did as Uchiha Madara.

It had started with emotions first. ( _ Pride, love,  _ **_hate_ ** _ , fear, joy, exasperation, thrill,  _ **_betrayal_ ** ) They had crowded him at the oddest times of day, be it when his new mother held him in her arms or when one of his many aunts came to take care of him when his mother was otherwise indisposed. Then came the images. Faces, mostly, of people he couldn’t quite remember. Then there were sounds ( _ clanging of weapons, rustling of leaves, soft voices singing lullabies, tortured screams _ ) that he heard at all hours of the day. It went on and on like that until he was suddenly being bombarded by memories of all kinds. He saw war ( _ “Today, we ambush the Senju scouting party by the northern ravine.” _ ) and death ( _ “No! Takagi! Don’t you dare die on me! Takagi!” _ ) and love. ( _ “My sweet Madara, Mommy loves you. Never forget that.” _ )

He remembered his father. ( _ His stern expressions and the loving looks that disappeared as he slowly grew older _ ) He remembered his mother. ( _ Such a kind smile, no matter how short her life had lasted in comparison to his own _ ) He remembered his comrades. ( _ They used to sit around a bonfire and laugh with one another, passing around stories and alcohol _ ) He remembered his brothers. ( _ How they fell one by one is combat, leaving him all alone _ ) And Izuna.

Oh dear Kami. Izuna.

( _Dead._ _Dead_ _Dead. Dead_ ** _DeadDEAD_** )

Madara was fairly certain that as a baby he had terrified a good number of people. He was mainly taken care of by Mikoto and his many aunts and grandmothers and he had seen a number of them watch him with strange, near frightened expressions. It simply wasn’t normal for a baby his age to experience the variety of emotions that he had displayed, to have nightmares of loss on a battlefield a hundred years gone, to look at them and understand what they spoke of when they chatted while taking care of him.

He was just lucky they hadn’t seen the moment the memories had triggered the activation of his sharingan. ( _ That would have been hard to explain _ )

He was only a little over a year old when all of his memories had finished coming back to him. He was still so weak at that time, still mostly confined to his crib and left with nothing to do but stare at the walls. So much time left unfilled, time he spent pondering over his previous life.

He had never had too much time alone to think. Having been born to a shinobi clan as prominent as the Uchiha, he had been drenched in blood nearly since day one. His youth had been filled with violent bloodshed and evenings spent wondering if someone else wasn’t going to come home or camping out in the forests of Hi no Kuni, paranoid that someone was watching them from the thick leaves or plotting an ambush against them. Would he die that day? He had often wondered. How much longer would he live? How much longer until his body would be burnt in a pyre with the corpses of all his other fallen clansmen?

( _ He had seen many funerals. Far, far too many funeral pyres filled with the bodies of his aunts, uncles, cousins,  _ **_brothers_ ** )

His later years spent in exile hadn’t been quiet either. They had been filled with plotting and hatred poisoning his mind and seeping into his bones. They had been spent constantly moving, staying out of sight, and slowly building up strength. There had been nothing restful about those days.

( _ Those days had been filled with nightmares, with restless sleep and harsh, cold whispers in his ears. Burn Konoha to the ground, they purred in the silent hours of night when none but the assassins moved about. Let it all burn to ash and dust _ )

The days after the Senju and the Uchiha had signed the peace treaty and built Konoha were peaceful. That was the only time he could think of where he had been allowed to rest. Those days had been filled with warm sun filled afternoons, long morning strolls through newly built streets, and laughter with people whose clansmen he had been killing a mere few months before. It had been tense, yes, ( _ why wouldn’t it be _ ) but it had been peaceful all the same.

But even in those days, his mind had still gone back to his darker hours, his worst moments. He had always seen in his mind’s eye Izuna’s corpse on the floor in front of him, white cloth laid over his eyes and skin unnaturally pale even for an Uchiha. Izuna had used his dying breath to warn him away from the Senju, to urge him towards continuing the war, to not listen to Senju lies, and Madara hadn’t listened.

That had come back to haunt him.

( _ But hadn’t he enjoyed it? The peace? _ )

_ I went mad _ , Madara mused to himself,  _ I truly did go mad. _

He didn’t know why he had been reborn. He thought that it could be karma, that it was Kami’s punishment for him. To have him be reborn in the very clan that had abandoned him, in the very village he had tried to destroy. It was a cruel sort of irony that he would be stuck in the care of the children and grandchildren of his old comrades, of the  **traitors** who turned their back on him.

Madara was so  _ tired _ . He had danced in tune with hatred’s symphony for so long, pulled along by the strings of anger for years. His anger had once boiled just beneath his skin, ready to bubble over at any moment if only the right thing set him off. He didn’t feel that anymore, not since his new wakefulness. He just wanted to sleep once more, to drift off into the oblivion that was death.

Yes, that was it. He wanted to die again. To die and maybe see Hashirama again in the Pure World, in the Shinigami’s embrace. Then perhaps ( _ just perhaps, never any more _ ) he would tell the man that he was sorry.

He scrapped that train of thought.

Just like his last life, he had a brother in this one, too. A brother by the name of Itachi. Itachi often came into his room with wide eyes filled with wonder, only to sit by his crib and whisper secrets to Madara’s toddler form. There were nights when Itachi had snuck in after hours and had held out a much larger hand for Madara’s tiny one to grasp and had spent the entire night there, doing nothing more than tell him stories about Itachi’s day and things he wanted to do with Madara when Madara was older.

He was a good brother and a sweet boy. He had a sort of softness about him that often reminded Madara of Hashirama, something he once would have hated and now clung to. He was also like Izuna in many of his mannerisms, if not less prejudiced against people outside the clan. It was nostalgic and heartbreaking all the same, and Madara couldn’t help but let his heart endear itself to the boy.

He could see just how much Itachi loved him and it was a beautiful thing to watch.

( _ Just like Izuna, poor Izuna who always stayed by his side until the very end _ )

The rest of the clan was exactly as Madara remembered them to be. Cold and stoic to outsiders, rarely letting people outside of the clan in. But inside the clan, among brothers and sisters and family, there was a camaraderie that shone freely when no one else was around. Madara hated it. He hated watching them, these people so much like the ones from his first life, the ones who had abandoned him when he needed them most, who hadn’t listened when he had screamed. He hated seeing these faces that were so familiar and yet so different from the ones he knew so well.

It clawed at his insides, scratched at his mind and turned his nights restless when Itachi wasn’t around to sooth his psyche.

His parents went by the names of Mikoto and Fugaku. Mikoto was most often around, taking care of him as any mother would do. Madara rarely saw Fugaku, however, for the man was too busy will other things. Itachi had told Madara in one of his late night stories that Fugaku was the head of the Konoha Police Force and that was why he was rarely around. Madara wondered if that really was the only reason why Fugaku couldn’t be bothered with his youngest son any time other than when they sat together at meals.

( _ There were days when he spotted Fugaku watching him with distant eyes, something unreadable in his expression. What was he thinking, Madara wondered, when he watched him like that? _ )

Days slowly turned to months and months turned to years. Late night visits from Itachi slowed when he graduated from the Academy when Madara was 3. Instead, they changed to spare hours spent walking through the Uchiha Compound streets and visits to the park on a nearby hill. Madara treasured these moments all the more once Itachi started going out on missions, despite the fact that Itachi had a few more months yet before he would be allowed to take on anything more dangerous than chasing a cat.

One day, Itachi would go on a mission far more dangerous than chasing a cat and one day he might not come back.

( _ Madara knew that all too well _ )

So Madara treasured the time they spent together, no matter what they did during those times. Be it reading from the old scrolls in the Uchiha libraries, wandering around the backstreets of the compound, or late night story telling over hot chocolate and smiles.

( _ Itachi came home one day after a mission and went to Madara’s room. His eyes had glowed crimson with the color of the sharingan and Madara had despaired over his little brother’s trauma even as he felt pride at Itachi’s accomplishments. Itachi was his little brother—even if Madara’s body disagreed—and Madara would do anything for the only brother he had left. He refused to fail Itachi like he had failed the others _ )

At age four, nothing too exciting had happened in Madara’s life. The most exciting thing to look forward too was the times Itachi occasionally took him to the park on the hill. It was fun, in a way, to lose himself in the facade of a child and pretend that he was ‘Just Sasuke’ rather than a S-rank nukenin reborn in the body of one of his descendants. It let him wonder if this was what a real childhood was like, free from mandatory training sessions, reports of family coming home dead from recent battles, and missions that started only far, far too young. It was what made life tolerable, he thought to himself as he and Itachi turned the corner and walked into the park.

And then it hit him. A chakra he had been searching for, even if he hadn’t realized it.

( _ He had always had chakra like water running through the veins of a tree. It was like the smell of earth in a freshly dug garden bed, or the feeling of the cold stream running through their old meeting place. It spoke of seas of flowers shifting with the wind on peaceful days—calm and flowing—and of the unbending oak tree, 6 centuries old and still growing _ )

_ Hashirama… _

He looked towards to source of the chakra, rooted to his spot. He noticed, distantly, that Itachi glanced down at him with curiosity at why he had stopped moving, but the thought was pushed aside in favor of finding the impossible man that impossible chakra belonged to.

There, on the swing set all by himself, sat a boy who looked to be 3 or 4 years old. He had blond hair that stuck up in every direction—wild in nature like Madara’s hair used to be—and three odd whisker marks on each of his tanned cheeks. He was staring at him with the brightest pair of cerulean blue eyes Madara had ever seen with all sorts of emotions flashing through them at once.

There was disbelief there. So was worry, surprise, and confusion. But most of all there was this.

_ Hope _ .

They watched each other for a moment, lost in some strange universe where the world around them ceased moving. Emotions warred inside of Madara’s head and he struggled with opposing wants. A part of him wanted to walk over there and greet him like he used to. Another wanted nothing more than to run away.

Then something happened and the spell was broken. The boy on the swing set stood up from his seat and went over to them with determination in every step. He grinned ( _ that’s Hashirama’s grin _ ) and stuck out his hand in a friendly manner.

“Hello!” the boy greeted. “My name is Uzumaki Naruto! Who’re you?”

It was Hashirama. After all this time, these past three years of this strange peaceful purgatory, he had found the one man he thought he would never see again.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Nice to meet you, Sasuke! Want to be friends?” Hashirama ( _ It was Hashirama. It was the Idiot Senju. Hashirama. It was Hashirama. How was that possible? _ ) looked almost desperate when he asked, though he hid it extremely well. No doubt it was only Madara’s familiarity with the man and Hashirama’s inexperience with his new body that allowed Madara to see it. Or perhaps Hashirama was allowing Madara to see it, a plead to Kami for a positive answer.

After all, the question was a test. Madara could see that easily enough.

( _ Are you sane? _ )

“Sure,” Madara told him, holding back a smile at the elation in Hashirama’s eyes. “I’ll be your friend.”

( _ I’m back _ )

Hashirama’s grin widened. “Great! Want to go play?”

( _ Welcome home _ )

Perhaps this second life wasn’t so bad. Perhaps this wasn’t a punishment from Kami for all of his past sins. Perhaps this was a second chance.

Madara could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

“This is my friend, Naruto.” Madara made a gesture to Hashirama, stubbornly staring at his parents as if daring them to say something. Hashirama felt like laughing—Madara had become something of an overprotective friend in the year since their reunion.

Meeting Madara’s new family was awkward and exciting all at once. A part of Hashirama worried that they would react to him with much the same manner that much of the rest of the village did. Another looked forward to properly meet the people Madara rarely ever spoke about. Madara was like that; private. He disliked sharing details about himself—his personal life especially. Because of this, Hashirama only knew a few things about Madara’s parents and most of this he had found out without Madara’s assistance.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Hashirama bowed to them, hoping that the politeness would make things at least a little bit easier. Itachi, Madara’s brother, looked on with mild amusement. Fugaku, Madara’s father, looked entirely unimpressed. Mikoto…

She looked like she had seen a ghost.

( _ “No doubt our children will be friends, -ttebane!” Kushina laughed with Mikoto, one hand lovingly placed over her pregnant stomach. “Then we can tease the two of them all the time!” _ )

Mikoto then smiled at him gently, the odd ghost look hidden behind a motherly front. “It’s so nice to meet you, Naruto-kun. When I heard from Itachi that Sasuke had gotten a new friend, I was so surprised! Sasuke doesn't have many friends, you see.”

Naruto grinned at that, but only because it was all to true. Their unique situation didn’t allow for very many friends and Madara was bad at making them even if he was an excellent leader when he wanted to be.

“Why don’t you and Sasuke go and play?” Mikoto continued. “Dinner will be in an hour, so you’re free to do whatever you want until then.”

At Naruto’s nod, Fugaku grunted and wandered off, mumbling to himself about paperwork and a rookie who was making trouble. Mikoto, too, left for the kitchen where all sorts of nice smelling food was being made. Itachi, on the other hand, stayed with them.

“Would you like to stay with me?” he asked.

Hashirama glanced over at Madara to see the faint longing in his expression. Itachi had been away on a mission for near a week, arriving home only that morning. Of course Madara would want to spend time with his brother.

“Sure,” Hashirama said. “I’d love to! Sasuke?”

Next to him, Madara’s eyes glimmered with unsaid thanks and he nodded. “Hn.”

Itachi smiled gently and nodded. “I found something interesting before I left for my mission. I’ve been meaning to show it to you, Sasuke, but thought you might like it if Naruto-kun came along as well.”

“I would, Nii-san.” Madara smiled. “Thank you.”

Itachi nodded and then walked towards the door. His gate was smoother than the last time Hashirama had seen him, which was a few weeks ago. Itachi definitely deserved the title of “prodigy” with how quickly he picked up shinobi skills. Before Konoha, such skills would have been used and abused on the battlefield. Now was no different in a way, though the types of missions Itachi received were far different. Delivering a scroll to an outpost was far different than raiding a town's food supply and burning the storage to the ground.

The three set off, walking through the streets of the Uchiha compound. Occasionally, greetings were thrown Itachi’s and Sasuke’s way, but mostly they got curious looks because Hashirama trailed after them. Outsiders inside of the compound was rare—it had always been—so someone so clearly not an Uchiha drew a number of questioning eyes. It was something Hashirama had dealt with many a time before.

( _ Hashirama was well known for crashing at Madara’s house whenever his wife kicked him out. Wandering the Uchiha’s halls was something he was familiar with, and so was their curious stares _ )

Itachi lead them passed the more populated portion of the compound and into an area that was filled with older buildings, storehouses, and spare housing. The streets looked familiar and Hashirama wondered if he had spent much time here before, when Madara had yet to leave the village they had founded.

“It’s over here,” Itachi murmured, walking over to a small alleyway. There was a broken wall there that no one had bothered to fix. It created a hole just large enough for a child or a small teen to crawl through. Itachi ducked through the hole, Hashirama and Madara following close behind. When they got inside, Hashirama heard a sharp intake of breath from next to them.

The room they entered was an old study. Much of it was covered in some measure dust, though there were seals here and there that kept the place from having even nearly as much dust as there would have been otherwise.

And that was a lot of dust given that this was Madara’s old study, untouched since the last time Madara had come here before leaving Konoha.

( _ When Madara had left, no one had gone to touch the study. The main house had moved to a different part of the compound, and that was that. After his death, it was all but completely forgotten, when slowly but surely the years made people forget _ )

There was a low desk near one wall. On top of it was several scrolls, one opened and the rest nearly stacked to one side. A brush and ink set rested next to the open scroll. Along another wall was a shelf of scrolls and bound books of various kinds. Some were labeled and many of the oldest ones were blank, their titles having long since been rubbed off. In another corner stood a candle holder, without a candle present. Leaves were scattered along the floor, no doubt blown in by the wind through the opening in the wall or the small high window.

All in all, it looked just like Hashirama remembered it, just aged.

( _ He remembered nights were Hashirama and Madara would sit in here together and pour over old scrolls, wondering at what was written in their folds. He remembered coming here to find Madara for a spar or to ask him his opinion on a new law. So many memories, they drifted in the room like ghosts _ )

“Wow.” Hashirama smiled. “How did you find this place?”

“I was looking for a cat,” Itachi confessed, “And saw the hole in the wall while running passed. I came back later to see what was behind it and found this place.”

Hashirama looked over at Madara to where he was staring at the room with a slightly haunted expression. He looked a bit like Mikoto in that moment, ghosts drifting just beyond his eyes.

“Sasuke?” Hashirama asked, eyes narrowing with worry. Had the place brought back bad memories? Should they have stayed away?

“I’m fine,” Madara said. “Shouldn’t we go back, now? It’s almost time for dinner.”

Itachi and Naruto both nodded hesitantly, the two of them exchanging a glance. Then the trio ducked back out of the room and went back to the main house.

It didn’t take long to get back and by the time they did, the ghosts hanging around Madara had completely vanished. They were greeted by a haggard looking Fugaku and a smiling Mikoto who was only just starting to put the meal on the table.

“Welcome back!” Mikoto said and Hashirama grinned at her in response. Itachi gave a small smile and nodded his head. Madara remained indifferent.

When the table was finished being set by Itachi and Mikoto, ( _ Hashirama had tried to help, but he’d been ushered into his seat with a “You’re a guest! You’re not supposed to do any work!” _ ) the five people all sat around the table. They said “Itadakimasu!” and then dug into the food.

Hashirama ate gratefully and listened to the idle chatter at the table. Mikoto asked Itachi and Madara how their days had gone, Fugaku congratulated Itachi on completing another mission, and Itachi asked Madara what he had been up to while Itachi was gone. They turned to Hashirama as well and asked him questions about where he lived, how Madara was treating him, what kind of things he liked to do, and other things like that. It went relatively well, though Hashirama was fairly certain that by the end of it both Mikoto and Fugaku weren’t entirely sure what to make of him.

Hashirama could understand that. He and Madara were all but complete polar opposites in disposition, after all. It would be difficult for an outsider unaware of their history to understand why they got along as well as they did.

( _ “Like night and day, those two,” Mikoto told Fugaku after Sasuke and Naruto had vanished into Sasuke’s room for bed. “Reminds me a bit of how Kushina and I were…” _ )

Dinner finished on a positive note and Madara, Itachi, and Mikoto cleaned up the dishes. Fugaku wandered off again, this time with a tired yawn and more muttering. Soon enough, cleanup was finished and Madara and Hashirama were allowed to go.

They walked off to Madara’s room, a medium sized bedroom with slightly more traditional decorations that one would expect from a 5 year old child. Someone had pulled in a second futon for Naruto to sleep in, and for that Hashirama sent them a mental thanks. Madara and Hashirama sat down upon the floor.

“What did you think?” Madara asked.

“They were nice.” Hashirama tilted his head to one side. “Itachi was kind as usual, and your parents are good people. Though I wonder why Mikoto had such an expression when she first saw me…”

Madara shook his head in a negative when Hashirama gave him a questioning glance. So Madara didn’t know either. Damn.

Hashirama sighed and moved his thoughts in other directions. There were other things to worry about than Mikoto’s private demons. Hashirama had finally gotten a name for the Sandaime the other day, and he wanted to tell Madara.

“I found out Saru became the Sandaime.” Hashirama said, smiling at the memory of a young Sarutobi Hiruzen running about with his teammates doing various ridiculous tasks. Tobirama often had them do the strangest of things only to reveal there was an important lesson behind each one at the end of each task. It drove some of his students haggard and Hashirama had laughed at their plight every once in awhile. Hashirama remembered being forced to do similar tasks at times when he was a child, and he had hated them at the time. Now, he looked back on them fondly.

“One of Tobirama’s students? The one that was always following you around?”

“That would be him. He’s aged quite a bit since then, though. He’s balding and his hair has gone grey.”

Madara leaned back on his hands and looked up at the lamp hanging from the ceiling. Hashirama followed his gaze and saw a moth fluttering around the light.

“I’d imagine,” Madara started, “that all number of the people we knew have aged. It’s been something like 50 years since we died.”

Hashirama smiled sadly, “I suppose so.” He shook his head. “But that’s not what I wished to talk about. Do you think that we should tell Saru about our situation?’

“No.” denied Madara, “Absolutely not.” At Hashirama’s raised brow, Madara continued. “Did you forget that I’m the nukenin who’s credited with your death? That I tried to destroy Konoha? That people use my name to get their children to behave? Besides, it’s not as if we need him to know. We’re living in a time of peace and we’re free to live this time however we want. I have no wish to ruin that by telling a student of Tobirama’s.”

Hashirama cringed and nodded. “I suppose you have a point… Madara?”

“Hn?”

“Earlier, when we found your study…” Hashirama frowned and wondered how to broach the topic.

“I’m fine. It just surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to come across that old place, not after I haven’t seen it in so long… I should have recognized it. Some renovation has obviously been done on that street for me to not have seen it coming…” Madara shook his head. “There is something good about finding that old place, though. I’m fairly certain I left my old summoning contracts in there… I know the fox one is, at least. The hawk summoning contract might be in one of the old Uchiha bases, I can't quite remember.”

Hashirama blinked. He hadn’t actually thought about summons… “Have you tried summoning anything before now?”

“No. I’ve been uncertain if my chakra is developed enough and you know what happens if a person who hasn’t signed a contract tries to summon something… I’d rather not end up in dangerous territory in this body before I’m stronger.”

They continued talking about mundane topic after that and eventually the two headed to bed, tired after the day’s events. They slept well, their nightmares warded off by the presence of the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

Skipping stones was an old habit of theirs.

It was something that had originated in the days following the signing of the Senju-Uchiha peace treaty when the houses had only been half built and the tensions between the two clans was still high. There wasn’t much to do in those days, at least not after Hashirama had finished growing trees to supply wood ( _ neither of them were carpenters after all, they weren’t much help in the construction and both of them avoided paperwork like the plague _ ) and so Madara had spent a number of those days bored.

He and Hashirama had spent much of their free time together doing various things to entertain themselves and to encourage better relations between the clans. They would wander the newly paved streets ( _ greeting people as they passed along _ ) tour the yet to be used training grounds ( _ occasionally trying one out for themselves _ ) or relax up on the clifftop where the Hokage monument would be once they found a person to make it for them.

Sometimes they went gambling and Madara would watch with an amused smile as Hashirama lost his bets. Sometimes they would go drinking, in the evenings when dark memories hung to heavy and they needed someone to lean on. Sometimes they would spar with one another, loving the feeling of adrenaline running through their veins coupled with the knowledge that their opponent could take everything they threw at them. Sometimes they would visit Tobirama and see his latest invention--be it something to keep the hospitals cool or a stove that didn’t burn wood.

The thing they did most often, however, was go down to the river and skip stones.

Neither of them knew why they had started skipping stones. They had just done it one day on a whim when Hashirama had found Madara wandering by a small pond and it had stuck. Perhaps it was to reminisce of their younger days ( _ when they snuck off to see each other, to laugh as they sparred on the river banks _ ) or perhaps it was born from something else entirely, started purely because they needed something to do that wasn’t training with one another. ( _ Because whenever they did that, training grounds got destroyed and being lectured by Mito about that wasn’t fun at all _ )

So, skipping stones was an old habit of theirs.

In a strange parody of when they were children the first time around ( _ when the clan wars were still raging and neither of them knew who the other was _ ), Madara often left the Uchiha compound and wandered down to one of the lesser used training grounds to meet up with Hashirama. It was a smaller place, with little to no open space for jutsu training and a river running through. It was a training ground that was most often used for stealth training and got very little traffic most of the time. For the two of them, the ground was a meeting place to skip stones at.

“Ah! Nooo! It didn’t make it across!” Hashirama looked dejectedly at the stone he had skipped that had landed just an inch short from the other side. So close it had been! If only it had gone just a little bit farther!

Madara snickered inwardly—outwardly only showing an amused twitch of his lips—and skipped his own stone. It skipped across the surface ( _ one two three four _ ) and landed cleanly on the other side of the river, completely clear of the water.

Hashirama hung his head with a heavy sigh, a dark cloud of depression hanging over his head. “Madara’s stone made it across…” he whined. “Why couldn’t mine have made it across like his did…?”

Madara snorted and crossed his arms. “Because you don’t train enough, Idiot Senju,” he said, sounding all too smug. After all, the first time around their positions had been reversed. Madara had been the one unable to make it across, while Hashirama had done it easily. “If you kept up with your reconditioning, then you’d be able to get the stones across every time.”  _ Like him _ , but that went unsaid.

The cloud hanging above Hashirama’s head seemed to darken as Hashirama promptly curled up on the ground, one of his arms wrapped loosely around his knees and his free hand drawing swirls in the dirt. He muttered quietly about the orphanage not letting him have any time to train, and Madara decided to do something to brighten him back up. It shouldn’t take much. Hashirama had always been easy to cheer up from superficial depressions like this one. ( _ It was the darker ones, the angry ones, the ones brought about from loss that hung like a stubborn mist refusing to disperse in the morning sunlight _ ) So Madara turned to conversation towards something he knew both of them were looking forward to.

“Don’t forget,” Madara said. “The Academy starts soon.”

Instantly, Hashirama jumped back up on his feet, the cloud vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. Hashirama grinned widely at Madara, happy at the thought of the Academy. The two of them were both physically 6 years old now, which meant they would be starting very soon.

“I know!” Hashirama exclaimed. “I can't wait! I wonder how it’s changed since we set it up…”

Madara allowed a smile to grace his features as he watched Hashirama. The Academy had been one of the first things they had set up after all the other important buildings and laws had been set in place. The Academy, a place where children could safely learn how to be a shinobi under the careful guidance of others. One of the measures they had taken so that children wouldn’t be sent out unprepared like pigs to slaughter on their first mission, like so many were when Hashirama and Madara had been young.

It was probably the only thing Madara and Tobirama had ever completely agreed on.

( _ They stared at each other from across the room, their animosities put behind them if only for the moment. “We should build an Academy,” they said, comradery present between them for perhaps the first time _ )

“Hn.”

Hashirama smiled at him, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Really now, Madara. Must you use your Uchiha speak? I know you’re just as excited as I am. You’ve always had a soft spot for children. I’ll bet you’re looking forward to this even more than I am.”

Madara couldn’t dispute that. He had been looking forward to the Academy for some time now. It was the start of his second shinobi career, a chance to see what the shinobi of modern day was like, and an opportunity to see how far the system he had helped set up had come. It was also a chance to get away from the clan.

( _ Betrayal, betrayal—their backs were turned to him. “Warmonger,” they whispered, sharp eyes glancing back at him _ )

So yes, Madara was looking forward to the Academy.

( _ Never has it been said that Madara wasn’t haunted by the ghosts of his past _ )

“Hn.”

Hashirama twitched at the grunt, looking unimpressed at the choice of ‘words’. The two of them remained in silence for just a moment, listening to the world moving around them and lost to their own thoughts.

“Hashirama,” Madara said when he glanced over at his friend’s new form. It was so  _ different  _ from the last, even if Hashirama’s sense of fashion had yet to get any better.

“Hmm?” Hashirama hummed in response, looking over in question.

“How is it at the orphanage?” Madara said, his tone oh so careful. They had spoken of this before, and Hashirama was all too quick to change the subject whenever they did. Madara wouldn’t allow it this time, even if he had to force an answer out of the fool.

Hashirama tensed for just a moment, forcibly relaxing an instant later. It was so quick that had it been anyone other than Madara, they likely wouldn’t have seen it at all. Hashirama smiled ( _ Fake, far too fake for you _ ) and said, “It’s going fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Madara stared him down, an unimpressed look upon his face. He refused to let Hashirama brush this off again. “Oh  _ really _ ?” Madara drawled. “Is that why you’re always complaining about hunger? Or why you look depressed whenever you talk about the children of the orphanage? Or why you’re shorter than a child your physical age should be? Or—”

“Enough.” There was anger in Hashirama’s tone and a dark look in his eyes, quiet bitterness swirling behind them. “That’s enough.”

( _ He had seen this look before. When had that been? Madara had been prone on the ground and certain he was going to die, and yet Hashirama had stayed Tobirama’s hand. Why was the Senju so persistent, so stubborn, so foolish? But maybe… Maybe a fool was exactly what they needed _ )

“Hashirama…” Madara refused to let this go. If he had to risk Hashirama’s anger to get him to stay on this topic, then so be it. Madara could take everything Hashirama had to throw at him and return it twice fold. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed during these past two years. You insult me if you think that I don’t know how the village looks at you.”

There was pain in Hashirama’s cerulean eyes when he responded. “I know. And I would never seek to suggest such a thing. I wouldn’t demote your intelligence nor your skills by assuming so. I just…”

This was getting them nowhere and Madara refused to let the idiot continue suffering in silence. “Idiot Senju… You don’t need to take on the world by yourself, remember? As strong as you might be, you’ve never been very good at this sort of thing.” With those words, Madara felt tired. Wasn’t this conversation supposed to happen the other way around? What a reversal…

( _ “Madara,” Hashirama chided him. “You don’t have to take on the world by yourself. You have people who will stand by your side and hold you up, no matter how wrong things go around you. You needn’t push everyone away, not when so many would so much rather stay with you and help you with your struggles.” _ )

“I know.” Hashirama smiled, a real one unlike the last. “I’m the one that’s always telling you that, aren’t I? It’s funny that you’d be the one to tell me now.” Apparently they were on the same page with regards to the reversal. “I only have to stay a short while longer. Orphaned Academy students get their own apartments. Just a few more months and I’ll be free to do whatever I want.”

“Just a few more months, huh?” Madara watched Hashirama for a moment longer, taking in their thin frame and their scuffed up clothing. They were worn but well cared for, just like what one would expect from Hashirama. The neglect was just that, neglect. No one had ever gotten physical with Hashirama other than the occasional reckless drunk. Everyone preferring to stay at a distance rather than coming in close. There were some good things about fear, even if it meant Hashirama would have to take care of himself. Madara sighed. He needed to change the subject again. “Have you had any luck contacting Kyuubi?”

Hashirama looked grateful for the subject change even as he shook his head in a negative. “None. I’ve been working off of the assumption that there should be some sort of physical manifestation of the seal within my mind, but I can’t seem to access my mindscape at all… If only there was a way to forcibly enter the mindsca…” he trailed off mid-word, eyes going wide as he stared at Madara.

“Madara,” he said, looking excited.

“Hn?”

“I think I know how we can contact Kyuubi.”

Madara raised a brow in question, causing Hashirama to grin. “The sharingan, remember? You told me about the incident with the Yamanaka who tried to kill you in your own mind.”

Ah. Madara remembered that. It had been during the clan war days, a little less than a year before the Senju-Uchiha peace treaty had been signed. Madara had been out on a sabotage mission when he had run into an ambush. Most of the shinobi had been pretty easy to defeat, and it was only by chance that the lone Yamanaka present had been able to hit him with the technique that forced him into his own mind.

( _ A pond—lotus blown, blossoming, blooming across the surface, koi fish swimming below. Trees surrounded them, the outskirts shadowed, swallowed, shaded. A kunai thrown—so foolish this was his territory, his mind, his—and blood flowed out into the water, staining it an ugly red _ )

He had later worked with one of his own clansmen to see if it was possible to replicate the incident without a Yamanaka there to direct the technique. He had found out it was, and rather easy to do as well.

With this in mind, Madara nodded. “Alright. Let’s try that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

The two of them sat across from one another along the riverside. It was best they weren’t standing when they did this, just in case the meeting with Kyuubi didn’t go well. ( _ It probably wouldn’t. Madara had enslaved the Kyuubi—had taken control of it with his sharingan eyes. Hashirama had captured its siblings—had given them away to other villages like tokens _ ) They were taking a chance with this. Hopefully, they would come out of the meeting with more information than they went in with.

“Ready?” Hashirama looked serious, no trace of his earlier teasing. They needed to be serious with this; there was no time for fooling around.

“Ready.” Madara closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the odd pattern of his Mangekyo shone from within their depths. It felt strange to look into Madara’s eyes when they were in this state; so used he was to avoiding them when they fought. He could scarcely remember a time when he had seen them when there wasn’t a battle raging around them.

( _ The last time he had seen those eyes, they had been pointed at him. Madness had been so glaringly obvious in Madara’s being then—seeping through the cracks in his mask _ )

Madara cast a genjutsu and the two of them used their chakra to redirect them to Hashirama’s mind. The world around them vanished and they found themselves in a new scene. They sat atop a concrete floor, an inch of water between them and the ground. The walls were an off-red almost the same shade as rust and shadows clung to long forgotten corners. The world around them was silent bar the slow rhythmic drips of water from the pipes running overhead.

“This is it?” Madara questioned with a raised brow, eyes scanning the sewer like surroundings. They both supposed that they should be grateful it didn’t come with the smell of a real one. Small mercies.

Hashirama nodded in answer, surprised by not only their surroundings, but also their own appearances. Across from him, Madara looked as he had in their last life, long inky black hair falling down his back in a wild mess of untamable spikes. There were bags under his eyes, serving only to emphasize the sharingan still glowing a deathly red within them. He wore the traditional Uchiha battle robes that Hashirama had known Madara to favor, and Madara’s worn crimson armor lay on top. No doubt it would be backless, just like the real one.

( _ Uchiha pride was a powerful thing. To leave the back off any armor they wore, just so the insignia emblazoned upon their back would be visible for all the world to see. So powerful was their comradery, the depth of the Uchiha’s bonds _ )

“It’s not… what I would have expected from you.” Madara frowned and looked back at Hashirama, the movement making his hair fall across one of his eyes. “I expected it to be… sunnier.”

Hashirama hummed. He had also thought his mindscape would be different from this. A representation of Konoha, perhaps, or a wooded area filled with the old trees that Hashirama had always adored. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this dreary scene… But that was something to worry about at a later time. For now they had a fox to meet.

Hashirama shook his head minutely and stood up. He noticed that he, too, had taken on the same appearance as his previous life. He could feel the callouses on his hands, the same ones he had used for decades to take away people’s lives. His hair—long, straight, and  _ brown _ —was a comforting weight on his head after so long attempting to keep his new short blond locks tame, and the sound of his armor shifting was a familiar noise he never thought he’d miss.

It made sense, in a way, that the two of them would appear as how they had in their last life. He had spoken with a Yamanaka before about the subject, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to appear in their minds as how they thought of themselves rather than how they actually looked. The elderly appeared young, the scarred appeared unmarked, and the crippled appeared unwounded.

What did it say about them that they appeared as how they once did?

( _ The days of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were 50 years gone, naught more than a story vanished into the pages of history books. They were living still—though only the two knew who they once were. Did they cling to their past, to an image that was only so much ash and dust? Or was it meant to be that they took on the appearance of their past within the quiet of their own minds? _ )

Hashirama didn’t know the answer to that, so he pushed the thought out of his thoughts for now.

( _ He could dealt with later _ )

Hashirama and Madara went down the hallway, following the lines of the red chakra flowing through the pipes. It was a quiet affair, the need for talking nonexistent and the only other sound being that of the water rippling around them.

Finally, they arrived in the chamber that held the Kyuubi.

The room was large, the floor far further under the water here than it had been out in the hall. The roof and the back of the room were both shrouded in shadows and neither the Uchiha nor the Senju could see beyond the bars stretching across the room. The bars themselves were made of metal and wood, powerful chakra flowing through both and forming a barrier that the Kyuubi would be unable to cross. At the center of the gate lay the seal keeping it closed.

Hashirama wasn’t the best at sealing. Fuinjutsu had always been more interesting to his brother--and later his wife--than it had for him. But even he, with all of his inexperience, could see the lines of ink on the seal and be amazed at the strength and complexity of its design.

Hashirama walked forward a few steps, sensing more than seeing something hiding in the darkness beyond the gate. It felt exactly as Hashirama remembered it—that ancient, acidic chakra laced with hatred belonging to exactly one being. Madara stood behind Hashirama and they both stood prepared to jump away from the gates with but a moment’s notice.

“Kyuubi no Kitsune?” Hashirama called.

The shadowed shifted, a giant gleaming red eye snapping open somewhere within. A low, hateful rumble echoed in the room and Hashirama spotted several tails waving about as the fox sat up. It seemed slow going—almost lazy—but there was power hidden in every movement and it made Hashirama want to shiver. The power of the Bijuu was always something to behold, and no matter how many times Hashirama faced them--be it battle or in situations like right now—he never quite got used to the near suffocating presence they all seemed to hold.

“ **Senju Hashirama?** ” a deep voice spoke, gruff and tired with age underlining the weight of every word. The sound alone would make lesser men faint, but both Hashirama and Madara had faced the Kyuubi before and they weren’t afraid of facing it again.

“ **What is Senju Hashirama doing before me?** ” The beast’s eyes narrowed and its wicked teeth gleamed in the low light. Claws scratched at the ground as if they were itching to reach out between the bars and attack the two people in its presence. “ **With** **_Uchiha Madara_ ** **for company no less…** ”

“That would be the predicament that we have come here to discuss,” Hashirama said to the beast. Best get this over with as quickly as possible, as he doubted the beast would appreciate talking pleasantries before getting to business. Honestly, the fact that the beast hadn’t attacked them yet was surprising and Hashirama could feel Madara’s tenseness from behind him. He wasn’t the only one worried. “We died. No doubt you know that.”

“ **Indeed.** ” The fox’s tails waved in an almost pleased manner, twisting and moving the shadows almost as if they were shrouded by a black fog. “ **I remember your funeral well. So sad Mito was… Her tears were hilarious. I laughed from within her seal, taunting her for days that you had died while she was busy sealing me and thus unable to help you.** ” The fox’s smile spread wide, its eyes gleaming with sadistic glee.

( _ She sat and mourned, tears staining her cheeks. Whispers echoed in her ears, a fox’s taunts heard clearly. “Be quiet,” she commanded, voice strong and powerful—like the waves crashing to shore in the land she called home. Glowing golden chains wrapped around the being within her and tightened, pulling until skin might break and muscles might tear on anyone else. “Be quiet!” The room around her was silent, but inside her head there was laughter only far too loud _ )

Hashirama’s hand twitched, but he did not react otherwise to the taunt. Instead, he calmly continued questioning the fox. “Is that what happened to you during that battle? Mito sealed you?”

“ **Within herself.** ” The Kyuubi looked disgruntled at the lack of reaction from the Hokage. It glanced from where Hashirama stood to the Uchiha behind them. Madara glared at the beast, sharingan shining brightly in the dark. “ **She was an excellent seal master, I’ll give her that much.** ”

Hashirama nodded and the Kyuubi sneered at him as Hashirama thought over the new information. Madara spoke next. “Answer, Kyuubi. Do you know why Hashirama and I have been given new life?”

The Kyuubi snarled at Madara, the water they stood on growing choppy as the beast’s movements created waves. Its tails waved in an agitated manner, and its eyes gained a curious look. “ **What makes you think I would answer you,** **_Madara?_ ** ”

Madara scowled. “Because you’re sealed within Hashirama and we could make your life hell.”

The Kyuubi laughed and the sound grated on their ears. “ **Hell?** ” It scoffed. “ **As if you could do any worse than what’s already been done. You** **_Uchiha_ ** **-** ” The word was spat like a curse. “ **-you always think that you have the** **_right_ ** **to control beings like me because of those eyes of yours. You know** **_nothing_ ** **of what I have seen, nor do you know the extent of what you deal with when you force me to do your bidding. Listen here,** **_Uchiha_ ** **, I only speak with you because of forces far stronger than I. You will get no cooperation from me or them.** ”

“Forces far stronger?” Hashirama asked.

“ **Silence,** **_Senju_ ** **.** ” The beast growled. “ **I work with no one and will answer no more of your foolish questions.** **_Leave, mortals!_ ** ”

A great gale rushed passed both of them, knocking both of them off their feet and forcibly ejecting them from the mindscape. The world shook around them and when it settled they were both children sitting beside the river once more.

“It knows something…” Madara stated, sharingan tomoe swirling agitatedly around his pupil.

“It does…” Hashirama crossed his arms. “But how to get it to speak?”

He looked up at the sky, pursing his lips in thought, and noticed that the day was slowly starting to come to an end. It would be dark in just a few more hours, which meant they had precious little time to spend together before they had to return to their respective homes.

Madara’s mouth pressed into a thin line. He stood, grabbed the closest stone, and threw it as hard as it could across the river. It buried itself into a tree and Hashirama raised a brow at the display of anger. He stood and said, “Madara?”

“I’m fine,” Madara said stiffly, his shoulders tensed and his fingers clenched into fists. “I just dislike that fox and its twisted riddles.”

Hashirama’s mouth twitched upwards in sympathy. “Don’t worry about it, old friend. In the end it does not matter why we have been brought here, right? Nor does it matter if the fox cooperates with us. So long as we can make the best of things, we’ll be alright. Perhaps this life is nothing more than a gift from the kami, a chance to enjoy the childhood we never had the last time around.”

“Perhaps…” The Uchiha muttered, discontent clear on his face.

Hashirama sighed. What to do about Madara’s mood? He walked out onto the river and turned to face Madara, settling into a taijutsu stance, his brow raised in challenge. “How about a spar to finish off the day? For old time’s sake?” Hashirama’s eyes gleamed as he watched a rare grin spread across Madara’s face. The prospect of a fight never failed to cheer Madara up.

( _ “Madara!” A clash and a roar, resounding across the land. “Hashirama!” Fire burned away at wood and people stopped fighting to watch with awe. Was this what gods fighting looked like? To be able to reshape the landscape on a whim—to bring it growth or destruction—Was this what gods were meant to be? Blood stained the ground a wet red, metal shards gleamed from the places they were embedded, adrenaline ran through their veins and urged them forward forward forward. Battle flowed in their blood, in their ancestry, in their souls. As much as they loved peace—a world where their brothers could be safe—the urge to fight was always strong _ )

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Madara taunted, following Hashirama out onto the water and settling into a fighting stance. “You aren’t as strong as you used to be.”

“Neither are you,” Hashirama parroted. “I’ll be fine, old friend. I can defeat you any day. Taijutsu only?”

“Taijutsu only.”

In silent agreement, they stood still for but a moment longer before leaping at one another. Off they went with a series of kicks and punches, their movements slowly growing more and more complex with each passing moment. They fought and as they fought neither stopped smiling. They weaved through the other’s movement; ducking, dodging, and slipping through the other’s guard.

Their movements blurred as they added chakra too their limbs to make them move half a second faster or duck half a second sooner. It was a beautiful dance and any shinobi watching them would be hard pressed to believe they were children of a mere six years of age.

( _ The images of their older selves seemed to shadow their every movement, the echo of a past not to be forgotten by either. They would remember—they would never forget—and if they had too they would remind the world exactly why the names Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama were revered _ )

No. They didn’t look like children at all. They appeared far more like the battle hardened shinobi they were underneath their childish skin.

They hit each other hard and bruises started to form on their skin. Cuts appeared when they were knocked back against something sharp—branches mostly, but so was there the occasional stone—and they would no doubt be black and blue come morning. Hashirama wouldn’t need to come up with any excuse—except maybe to the ANBU who occasionally showed up to check on him—but Madara would have to explain himself to Itachi—the overprotective brother the boy was.

( _ Tomorrow, Hashirama would have fun watching Madara explain himself to Itachi. But for now, they lost themselves to the rush of the fight and the howling of their souls _ )

The fight ended in a draw despite the fact that Madara had been retraining his new body more than Hashirama had. The day ended on a good note and they both went home with smiles on their faces and lighter hearts, disastrous meeting with the Kyuubi be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	6. Hinata Interlude

“Freaky eyes!”

They yelled at her and Hinata shrank away from them. The people of the village could be cruel, children especially. The children outside of the clan found her eyes all too strange.

( _ Her eyes were a color that on any other face would mean she was blind, and yet one day she would be able to see for miles with nothing capable of blocking her view _ )

The people inside the clan weren’t much better. She was clan heir, and yet she was so weak. She hated that.

The boys were her age, and they were stronger than her despite their civilian heritage. Hinata knew that one day the strength of these boys will be nothing to her, that she will be able to knock them down as if they were flies, but in that moment they seemed to be more powerful and dangerous to her than the Kyuubi who attacked the village little more than five years ago.

( _ Hinata wondered what it would be like if she were different, if she were stronger _ )

They knocked her down to the ground, laughing as the small stones on the forested floor scratched at her palms. It hurt, but not as much as hits from her father during training does. ( _ Tears gathered anyway _ )

“Who do ya think ya are?” the boys asked her. There are three of them here, each of them surrounding her and closing in on her. She felt trapped. ( _ She hated that, too _ ) “Comin’ here with yer freaky shinobi eyes an’ tryin’ ta play in  _ our  _ space? Go back ta where ya came from, freaky eyes!”

Hinata hunched her shoulders and prepared to get up and run away from them, to escape them and last another day, but then someone came and a new voice sounded.

“What do you think you’re doing to her?”

The three boys turned around to see a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes standing there. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was set in a disapproving line. It reminded her of the way her uncle used to look whenever she did something wrong. Disappointed, but resigned. ( _ She missed that look from her uncle, the one who was dead and gone. It was her fault he was dead—she wished it was different _ ) Only, this time that gaze wasn’t pointed at her. It’s pointed at the three boys who had pushed her to the ground.

“Gettin’ her ta leave,” one of the boys said. He was the ring leader, or at least that was the impression Hinata had. He stood in the center and the other two flanked him, standing just a step behind him, appearing ready to charge. “Whatta ya gonna do ‘bout it?”

“I’m going to stop you,” the blond boy told them calmly. His hands were held loosely by his side and he felt dangerous to her. ( _ Like there was something lurking behind his eyes, ready to jump out and attack them at any moment _ )

“Hey now…” the boy on the left said, his smile growing wider. He didn’t seem to notice the danger hanging around the blond like a stubborn mist and Hinata wondered what would happen to him. “Aren’t ya the one the adults ‘re always chasin’ away? The  _ outsider _ , Uzumaki Naruto. Yer’ worse than freaky eyes, here!”

Naruto tilted his head back, his eyes glinting in the light. It was summer and the sun was shining strongly. The heat had chased many people into the shade of the indoors or into the ponds of the forest. “You shouldn’t bully people. I suggest you leave us both alone before one of you gets hurt.”

The boy on the right barked out a laugh and rushed forward, his arm cocked back for a punch. Naruto moved around him and casually tripped him so he fell to the ground. He had made the move look so easy. ( _ He was dancing and the other was moving through thick syrup _ ) That grace was something Hinata had sought after since the moment she had started training with her clan; the grace her uncles and aunts and cousins had. The grace her father had.

“Why you!” the leader yelled as he and the remaining boy charged as well. The boy who had fallen on the ground got up and all three of them ran at Naruto. In response, he just danced around them. They never came close to touching him.

Naruto tripped them and they got right back up, moving back into the fray. Down they went and up they came, and still Naruto had not a scratch on him. The others weren’t so lucky.

( _ Rocks and bruises—branches and scratches _ )

The three boys stumbled away, just a little bit scared. “How can ya move like that?!” the leader yelled, eyes wide. Naruto simply smiled at them, eyes narrowed and not a hint of softness about his features.

“Run,” he said. They did.

When they were gone, Naruto turned to face her and smiled at her, his expression so different than the one he had pointed at the boys. It was kind and forgiving, like soft sunlight in the spring. But there was strength there, something older than his body should allow. “Are you alright?”

She nodded and watched him with a quiet sort of awe. She thought of the faces on the monument ( _ of the stories she had been told about the Hokage _ ) and thought Naruto carried the same sort of strength as the men immortalized there. She wondered how it was possible for him to be so strong, for him to carry himself with such confidence, and she wished that she could hold herself the same way.

“Hinata-sama!” a voice called from behind her. A member of the branch family went to her and grabbed her arm, helping her stand. “Hinata-sama! Are you hurt? This brat…” He tossed a glare in Naruto’s direction. “Come on, Hinata-sama. I’ll get you home.”

The branch member dragged her away, ignoring her as she protested, ( _ they always did _ ) and she looked back at the boy who had saved her. He stood there, smiling a sad sort of smile, and waved kindly at her. ( _ He looked lovely with the shade of the leafy trees drawing patterns on his skin and his eyes glittering in the summer sunlight _ ) She wished that she could thank him. She wished she could have stood up against those boys. She wished that she could walk with the easy confidence he had. She wished she could be strong.

_ I want to be like him _ , she thought to herself as she sat before her father later that day, explaining the events that the branch member had walked in on. Her father gained a pinched expression when she told him her savior’s name, and he then ordered her to return to her room without further explanation. Hinata wondered why the adults disliked Naruto, why they could dislike such a kind boy, and she hoped that she would be able to see him again.

_ One day _ , she vowed, _ I will be strong just like him. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	7. Chapter 7

The orphanage that Hashirama resided at was a quaint place located near the eastern edge of Konoha. It was small, old, and near a marketplace that sold a wide variety of things.

( _Every morning, one of the matrons would always wake up early so that she could head down there and buy fresh vegetables to be used in the orphanage meals_ )

The orphanage itself was two stories tall, painted white with a red roof, and rather plain looking from the outside. The main floor held a kitchen, a dining room, an office for the head matron, bedrooms for workers staying there, and a playroom meant for the younger children. The second floor held the rooms were all the children slept. Behind the building was a large yard that the children often spent their time playing in. In one corner was a large tree with wide leafy branches that provided shade during the hotter days of summer.

All in all, the orphanage was a nice place. The children were lively and well behaved, they were given free reign on what they wanted to do, and they were given a weekly allowance to be used to buy small treats from the toy and sweet stories just down the street. Had Hashirama been any other child, he would have enjoyed living there very much.

However, it pained Hashirama to stay there. It was both because he wasn’t a child and that often left him bored and with nothing to do, but also because of the prejudice the adults held towards him. The matrons held much the same opinion of him as the rest of the village. None of them were Shinobi and they knew nothing of fuinjutsu. His presence and the odd behavior resulting from his unique circumstances did nothing but fuel the belief that the fox would one day break out and kill them all.

( _“I’m sorry, Kiyomi-san.” Miyu looked distraught. There were bags under her eyes and hair fell free from the bun she kept her hair in. “I just can’t do it anymore. Now with that- that_ thing _always wandering around this place. I can’t stand it! He’s far too mature for his age, he has that look about him that no child should have, and I keep getting nightmares about that damn fox. I can’t take it anymore. Call me again once he leaves and maybe I’ll come back.”_ )

Hashirama ignored it. ( _No, he didn’t_ ) He ignored the way they would look at him with wariness in their eyes despite the smiles on their faces. He ignored the way they ushered the other orphans away from him, their movements stiff as they glanced at him sitting underneath the tree in the corner of the yard. He ignored the way the cook always seemed to grimace when she gave him food on his plate and the way she refused him second despite giving others thirds.

But even as he ignored their actions, he still felt the pressure of the hate around him.

Hashirama was no stranger to hated. He had always been hated, regardless of which life he was speaking of. In his last life he was hated for being the heir, for being a Senju, for being as talented as he was. But even if he had known the weight of hatred in his last life, he had known so much love as well. There was the camaraderie between him and his clansmen. There was the companionship between him and Tobirama. There was his love for his parents and his brothers. There was his friendship with Madara.

( _No matter how brief that friendship had lasted, no matter if they had been chased off by the circumstances of each other’s birth. Hashirama never forgot that Madara still cared for him, that Madara had inscribed the word “run” into his stone_ )

Since being reborn, he had experienced none of that. Nothing but his renewed friendship with Madara. It was saddening and it wore down on him like a weight placed upon his shoulders. He honestly couldn’t wait to get away from the orphanage because of this. At least then the neglect would be less obvious to him.

Hashirama knew Madara despised the fact people disliked him. He could see it in the way Madara would glare at the civilians who looked at him wrong. He could see it in the way Madara invited him over for dinner so he wouldn’t have to stay at the orphanage. He could see it in the way Madara seemed to almost want Hashirama to just run away from the orphanage to stay at the Uchiha compound--protest from Madara’s clansmen be damned--and away from hateful eyes.

( _"It's wrong," Madara told him once, "You're the light. People shouldn't look at you like that. If anything, I'm the one who should be glared at."_ )

Every year, a chuunin would come and tour each of the orphanages in Konoha. They always looked tired and most of them appeared as if they wanted to be anywhere else, but they gathered all the children ages 6 to 10 nonetheless and gave them a speech about shinobi life. It was a very bare speech--one that highlighted the good and shied away from the bad. It spoke of some of the more famous shinobi and told the children that they could be the next Jiraiya or Yellow Flash.

( _“Two of the Sannin were orphans who grew up in the same orphanages you live in now. If they could become great, why does that mean you couldn’t?”_ )

It was a speech heard a million times by the older and more stubborn children at the orphanage. They always dreaded the time of year when the chuunin would come around, because they had heard it before and hadn’t been impressed. For others, the chuunin coming was a chance to escape the orphanage and go off and do their own thing. Signing up for the Academy meant an apartment of your own, a stable source of income, and a lifelong career ahead of you. It meant you were free from the clutches of the matrons, from civilian school, from the uncertainty that lay ahead of every orphan not entering the Academy.

( _Red lights and corpses in the streets--two options that should one miss, they may end up okay. Only even those, the lucky ones, never make it very far before they come crawling back ‘home’_ )

When the chuunin came around in Hashirama’s sixth year, Hashirama was among the first to walk up and sign the list that entered him into the academy. A few days later, Hashirama was unlocking the door to his apartment for the very first time. It was a simple affair without too many complications. A form, a signature, a key, and they were done.

( _And that was how his second shinobi career started_ )

.

.

.

For Madara, signing up for the academy was very different. There was no Chuunin coming knocking on his door to tell him a speech about shinobi life. There was no new apartment, nor was there a weekly stipend given to support himself. Madara didn't have to do anything at all.

For an Uchiha of the main house, becoming a shinobi was expected. Therefore, his parents signed him up without asking him if he wanted to go, and sent him off to class.

( _In the end, it didn’t matter if they had asked or not. Madara had always been a shinobi and would continue to be one regardless of if they asked. It was in his blood, his mind, his soul_ )

Come start of term, Madara hadn't done anything at all. His shinobi career had started with his birth in the Uchiha clan and had been sealed from the moment he had displayed any sort of talent in the shinobi arts. Such was the fate of those born into shinobi clans.

.

.

.

The first day came with the rush of buying school supplies ( _paper, senbon, pencils, shuriken, backpacks, kunai, textbooks--such an odd assortment of things_ ) and parents saying goodbye to their children. Some, particularly the civilian, acted as if they were sending their child off to war and they would never see each other again. Madara found it foolish. They would be reunited in but a few hours and the chance of dying in a classroom--shinobi class or no--was abysmal at best.

For Madara and Hashirama, there were no such dramatics. Hashirama hadn’t anyone to say goodbye too and thus came quietly. All well wishes for Madara came from Itachi and were exchanged at home.

The first year students were piled into the auditorium where they were treated with a speech from Sarutobi Hiruzen. It was long and a bit boring to listen to. He spoke at length about the Will of Fire and the importance of the future generation--something which made Hashirama smile. Once the speech was over, they were directed to a wall of boards that held the names of which student belonged to which class. Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke were both in a classroom filled for the most part with members of a shinobi clan, supplemented with civilian children and the occasional orphan. That was a blessing, the two of them supposed.

The classroom had 25 children in it, all seated at various places in the room. A little more than half of them belonged to one clan or another and most of them were chattering excitedly in their seats. Hashirama and Madara took one of the two tables in the back--the other occupied by a boy from the Aburame clan and a rather shy Hyuuga girl Hashirama had helped out a few months ago--so they would have a good view of the rest of the classroom and their backs wouldn’t be exposed.

( _Some habits are hard to break--especially when they kept you alive_ )

Class officially began when two chuunin walked into the room, one of them carrying a stack of folders and the other scanning the crowd. The one carrying the stack of folders was a taller woman with pale blond hair pulled up into a ponytail and pretty blue eyes. The other was an older man with tanned skin, wrinkles around his eyes, and short brown hair that hung around his ears.

“Listen up!” called the man, his presence causing the room to fall quiet. “I’m Inomata Ryu, you may call me Inomata-sensei. This is Yamanaka Suzu. We’ll be your teachers for the year.”

The class began and Hashirama and Madara idly listened as they went over rules and expectations before moving onto the first lecture of the day. Only an hour into it, Madara and Hashirama both agreed on one thing.

( _This is so boring…_ )

**Deleted scene:**

At one point or another during class, Madara was made aware of a pair of eyes constantly drifting their way. He traced the source back to a person sitting in the other back table; the Hyuuga girl.

“She keeps staring at us,” he muttered to Hashirama, getting irritated at her constant glances. Why was she looking at them? Was it because of Madara? The Hyuuga-Uchiha doujutsu rivalry was infamous; was that the reason she stared? No… She was watching Hashirama, not him.

“Her name’s Hinata, I think,” said Hashirama. “I ran into some kids picking on her a few months ago; drove them off. She was dragged away by some branch members before I could speak with her. You think she could be watching for an opportunity to speak with me?”

Madara raised a brow, “What do you think?” He snorted quietly, careful to keep from drawing the teacher's attention towards them. “It seems to me she has a crush on you. Why else wouldn’t she have approached you before class began? There was plenty of time then.”

Hashirama looked ill. “A crush? I hope not. It makes me feel dirty thinking of a young girl like her in that way. I’m old enough to be her grandfather and I’m already married.”

  
Madara felt Hinata looking over at them again and sighed. “Then you’d best do something about the crush before it grows too big. Otherwise this will be bothersome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

The sun was setting. They were on top of the Hokage Monument, seated between the spikes in the Yondaime’s hair. Before them the village sprawled outwards, people going about their lives--some of them only just waking up and others settling down for the night. Hashirama and Madara watched them in silence, taking pleasure in watching their childhood dream play out before them. It was a calming act that they often participated in--one that Madara knew Hashirama treasured.

( _ The lights lingered in the houses of the residential district and the marketplace slowly emptied out. The red light district slowly came to life and noise could be heard from the gambling dens. Shinobi leapt from rooftop to rooftop in a rush to finish their missions and children were hurried home by their parents. Slowly but surely the night conquered the day in a brilliant shower of fire, the world moving onwards below the display _ )

“I want to visit Tobirama’s and Mito’s grave.”

Hashirama’s voice came out of the blue, so Madara looked over at him and raised a brow. He wondered why Hashirama had brought up their graves then of all times, as he had never spoken of them before. Madara had assumed that Hashirama had visited them on his own time; either before the two of them had met or during one of the days when circumstances disallowed the two of them from staying together. 

But in a way, Madara thought, the answer was obvious. History lectures were commonplace in the Academy daily regimen and the lecture of the day covered the start of the Second Shinobi War. It had been Tobirama’s death at the hands of Kumo shinobi that had triggered it, and the lecture must have reminded Hashirama of their deaths.

To Madara, the time between when he died and when he was reborn was nothing. It made very little difference to him, who had spent years wandering around before then and was without anyone close to him. ( _ There was no one waiting for him at home. No wife or children. No brothers, mother, father _ ) He hadn’t had any desires to keep him living, either. The only one he’d had was the wish to see Konoha burn. 

For Hashirama, Madara supposed it was different. Both Mito and Tobirama had been alive and well when they had died. Hashirama had two children, their spouses, and a granddaughter who had waited for him to come home from their battle at the Valley of the End. None of them had seen him come home, and Hashirama hadn’t seen any of their deaths. For him, Madara supposed that this entire situation felt not unlike they were away on a very long mission. Like he would just be able to go home one day and be greeted with smiles and a “ _ Welcome home. _ ”

But that wasn’t happening. Today’s lecture must have put things into perspective.

With this in mind, Madara stood from his spot and jumped out from between the spikes on the Yondaime’s hair and onto the clifftop. He started walked towards Konoha’s graveyard, where Madara had no doubt they would be buried.

“Madara?” Hashirama called, sounding almost uncertain. There was something in his tone of voice that made Madara want to kill someone, to tear them to pieces and to burn them to ash. 

Instead, Madara paused in his steps and looked back over his shoulder. “Well?” he called, careful to keep his features free from judgement. “You want to go see them, don’t you?”

Hashirama’s eyes shown in gratitude and he smiled softly. He stood and went to join Madara and the two of them started walking side by side. 

“Thank you.”

( _ It was a quiet sound. So soft, it almost went unheard. But so too was it light--it felt like the weight of the world could be lifted with just those two words _ )

Madara wanted to tell Hashirama that he would do this anytime. They were each other’s anchor in these moments, the only two standing in the middle of the ever shifting tide. He wanted to say that this was nothing compared to how Hashirama pulled him out of his madness, how Hashirama had stopped him from destroying himself and the world. He wanted to say that Hashirama was his only friend and for his friend he was willing to do almost anything to see him happy.

He didn’t know how to say any of that.

“Hn.”

However, with Hashirama’s responding smile, Madara knew Hashirama understood anyways.

As much as Madara might have hated Tobirama and disliked Mito, he would go and visit their graves a million times a day if it made his only friend even just a little bit happier in this odd situation the two of them had found themselves in.

.

.

.

Hashirama was working on completing the day’s homework assignment when the window to his apartment was shoved open and Madara jumped in. “Hide me!” he said, sounding desperate.

Hashirama nodded numbly and watched with vague amusement as the window was shoved closed and Madara dived into another room. Just a moment later, a crowd of young girls passed underneath the window, all of them calling “ _ Sasuke-kun! _ ”

“I think I saw him go in there!” one of the girls called before pointing up at the window Madara had come through just a moment before. Instantly, the crowd migrated to the stairs and, while he couldn’t see them any longer, he could still hear sounds of the girls fighting to be the first one up the stairs. After just a moment, there was pounding on Hashirama’s door.

Hashirama stood up and approached the door with caution. He opened it just a crack and called, “Hello?”

“Open up!” We know Sasuke-kun is in there! Sasuke-kun!”

Hashirama opened the door just a little bit further--just enough so the crowd would be able to see him. “Sasuke isn’t in here. I’m here alone. You have the wrong apartment.”

The girls pushed against the door, shouting that there was no way they were wrong and that “Sasuke-kun” had to be in the apartment. Hashirama struggled to keep the door closed and had to resort to chakra to prevent himself from slipping with the force of the door against him.

“Wait! I think I see him!” someone near the back yelled. “Over there! Sasuke-kun!”

With that, the crowd ran off in the direction that they saw “Sasuke-kun”.

When Hashirama was certain it was safe, he relaxed with a sigh. “You can come out now. They’re gone.”

“Thank kami.” Madara appeared from his hiding place. “I wasn’t certain they would fall for a clone… Those brats are seriously persistent in their pursuit.”

Hashirama laughed. “So they are, old friend. Makes me wonder if we could weaponize that persistence of theirs. It would certainly make missions easier.”

Madara let out a long, tired breath and collapsed on the couch. “So it would…” he muttered. Madara laid his head back on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. He looked miserable. “Why are they even chasing me? To them, I’m _ seven. _ They can’t possibly think I’d go off and fall in love with someone! Not to mention how  _ creepy  _ me getting together with one of them would be.”

Hashirama watched with amused fascination. Had someone told him at any point in his last life that Madara would be forced to run from a crowd of civilian girls, he would have asked them if they had gotten any head wounds recently. And yet, here was Madara hiding in Hashirama’s apartment from a crowd of civilian fangirls. 

( _ Terror, terror--the curse of the Uchiha--fangirls _ )

Fangirls were a new enemy for Madara. In their old life, no one in the Uchiha had acted that way. ( _ There was far too much bloodshed for anyone to be giggling behind closed doors and stalking the men of the clan _ ) By the time that Konoha was built, Madara had built up a reputation that had him both feared and admired by the general populace. Because of this reputation, women tended to avoid him and there had certainly never been anyone who had approached him for a relationship.

The entire situation was new, annoying, and just a little bit terrifying. Fangirls were a force to be reckoned with when they wanted to be.

Madara sighed before throwing a glare at Hashirama, who was struggling to hold back snickers. The bastard. He only had to deal with the one stalker and not a crowd of them.

.

.

.

A knock came at Hashirama’s door. He got up, walked over and opened the door to see who it was. Maybe it was Saizo-san. The man was having issues with his plumbing and was convinced it was Naruto who had caused it. However, a quick check of the chakra on the other side of the door revealed a very different picture. Saizo-san was a civilian and his chakra was abysmal. It felt a bit like dry earth and it wasn’t all to remarkable. The chakra standing on the other side of the door was much larger than Saizo-san’s, as well as older. It felt like a contained storm, clouds low to the ground and rumbling with lighting, wind blowing round and round. 

_ What is Saru doing here? _ Hashirama wondered as he opened the door. Hashirama hadn’t met the man in person since being reborn, and the last time he had spoken with him was when Saru had been just a boy.

( _ A boy ran around with his teammates, completing the absurd tasks that Tobirama often had them do. They smiled, his chakra speaking of the wind his clan was known for. “But sensei!” he whined. “What is the point of it?”  _

_ “There is always a point to the things I tell you to do, Saru. These tasks teach you patience, wisdom, and strength. Not everything about being a shinobi is knowing how to fight. Sometimes being a shinobi is knowing how to wait.” _ )

It was an odd feeling to look at the man standing at Hashirama’s door and compare him to the boy Hashirama remembered. The man standing before him was an old wizened man with liver spots and greying hair. He looked nothing like the young and gutsy shinobi Hashirama had once watched chase the daimyo’s wife’s cat.

“Hello, Naruto-kun. How are you doing today?” Saru smiled kindly at him. He gave of the aura of a loving grandfather doting on their favorite grandchild. Strange for Hashirama, who was older than Saru was, but no doubt soothing to any other child that Saru spoke to.

“I’m doing well, Hokage-sama. Can I ask why you’re here?” 

Saru bowed his head for a moment. “I’m just performing a routine check to see how you’ve settled into your new home. I trust everything is going alright?

Hashirama nodded. “Everything is fine. Yun-san two doors down is a bit loud and Saizo-san can be a bit of a grump, but everything is going fine!” Hashirama smiled at Saru. He thought wistfully of how Saru would react if he knew the boy he was speaking to now was actually the man he had so aspired to be when he was younger.

( _ They wouldn’t tell. They couldn’t tell, not until the right time came _ )

“That’s very good to hear, Naruto-kun. I want you to know that if anything ever goes wrong, no matter how small it is, you can always come and tell me about it. My doors are always open for you.” Saru smiled another grandfatherly smile and Hashirama beamed back at him. It was nice to see that Saru’s kindness hadn’t changed in the years since Hashirama had seen him last.

“Thank you! I’ll keep that in mind.”

He and Saru then exchanged farewells and Hashirama was left feeling nostalgic for the days before Madara had left, back when Konoha was still being built.

.

.

.

The time went on like clouds slowly drifting passed. The year came to an end and started again. The second year of the academy came with the coming of spring and was much the same as the first, bar the introduction of physical lessons. They were finally brought out into the yard used for physical training and shown the Academy Katas--a taijutsu style loosely based off of a simplified version of the Senju Clan taijutsu style. Those who hadn’t had their chakra systems unlocked had theirs unlocked and everyone was introduced to basic chakra control exercises.

The days slowly moved onwards, with only the rise and fall of the sun to mark the passage of time. Madara and Hashirama turned 7 years old within months of one another and the clock kept ticking. However, they both knew that these peaceful days would not last forever.

And soon enough, Madara caught wind of violence brewing on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	9. Chapter 9

When Konoha had only just been created, a decision had to be made about who was going to be leader. This happened before any other clans joined the village, before the civilians began to flock there. This happened back when there was only Uchiha and Senju living in one place and only Madara and Hashirama were options for leaders.

They had received word that rumors of their village was already beginning to spread. Spies reported various clans who were already interested in joining their alliance, unwilling to be overpowered or over run now that the two strongest clans were no longer fighting. Before they could accept any other clans into the fold, they needed to settle on a leader to head the village. Someone everyone could look to as a symbol of their unity, as a person to fight for.

( _ And so the Hokage was born _ )

When time came to pick a leader, Hashirama pushed for Madara to be chosen. Without Madara, the village would never have been founded and Hashirama believed that Madara deserved to be given the recognition. It was Tobirama who interfered and asked that the two clans cast a vote to pick which one would be the Hokage. The village chose Hashirama.

Madara was okay with this. He appreciated that Hashirama had pushed for Madara to be leader, but he hadn’t really wanted to seat. ( _ He wasn’t suited to politics and even he could admit Hashirama had a charisma few would ever be able to rival _ ) Hashirama was a good leader as well. He was compassionate and willing to do what was necessary when required. He was charismatic and drew people around him like planets circling the sun. He wasn’t afraid of making unsavory decisions for the good of the village. 

Yes, Hashirama was a very good leader. Madara approved of Hashirama’s rule.

However, a time came when Hashirama stepped down. His first grandchild had just been born--a tiny girl with blond hair and brown eyes by the name of Tsunade--and he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family rather than be stuck in his office all day. He didn’t want for his granddaughter to grow up knowing her grandfather as nothing more than the man who managed the village all day, and he missed being able to spend time with his wife, children, and friends whenever he wished. Therefore, he stepped down.

A new Hokage had to be chosen to take Hashirama’s place. Once more, Hashirama tried to give Madara the Hokage seat, and once more a Senju was chosen instead.

( _ It was when Tobirama put on the hat for the first time that Madara knew the Uchiha had never truly been a part of the village _ )

Madara had gone to his clan and tried to convince them that things were going wrong, that they weren't welcome here any longer now that Tobirama was in office. Madara knew Tobirama. ( _ He killed Izuna _ ) He had fought him--nearly killed him--during the clan wars and had spoken with him many times when they were building the skeleton of the village. They had argued and compromised and gone behind each other’s backs for petty revenge and slowly but surely set the foundations of the village.

Madara knew Tobirama’s distrust of the Uchiha had never faded away, not in all the time that had passed since the initial signing of the Senju-Uchiha treaty.

( _ Not even little Uchiha Kagami--one of the six students Tobirama had taken on and the only Uchiha of the bunch--could convince the man to let go of old prejudices about the clan with red eyes Tobirama had once fought with such viciousness _ )

Madara tried to warn them. He tried to get the Uchiha to leave Konoha with him. But the clan refused to listen, and they turned their backs on him.

The Uchiha were weary of war and fighting. They had fought for so long and they were tired of losing family and of the uncertainty that came with wandering with the constant threat of ambush. Konoha was their ticket to peace, their guarantee of rest. So when Madara came to them with word of betrayal, they turned their backs on him and assumed him a warmonger rather than a man warning them of their fate. They had no wish to abandon their new home and return to the uncertain days before the new peace.

To Madara, it did not feel like that. It did not feel like they ignored him for want of peace. Instead, a burning emotion flooded his veins and bubbled under his skin, poisoning his mind and every breath he took..

( _ They betrayed him.  _ **_Traitors_ ** _ , all of them. He was alone in his belief and his comrades--his family--had no wish to listen to him. Was this what his loyalty was worth? Was this all it took for them to leave him behind and move on without him? _ )

And so, Madara turned his back on his clan just as they had done to him.

( _ During the last week before Madara left the village, Madara was unusually subdued. No one noticed this, bar Hashirama who made certain to spend more time with his friend. In the end, it didn’t matter and Madara still went _ )

A day came and Madara vanished off into the distance, the beginnings of mad whispers already echoing in his ears. He fled the village in the middle of the night, unnoticed by all but Hashirama.

( _ Then came the beginning of his wandering days, of restless nights and whispers of traitors in his ears. Hatred--it hummed to him so sweet a tune, and he listened to it all day long _ )

It was because Madara had seen--had  _ known  _ without a shadow of a doubt--that the Uchiha would be orchestrated that he was entirely unsympathetic when he noticed the growing discontent within the clan. Madara had known they would be pushed away to the outskirts, that the Uchiha would be blamed and watched with distrust. He had seen the growing suspicious looks between the Uchiha and the villagers since the Kyuubi attack, had seen the way the Uchiha had been delegated to a mere  _ police force _ by Tobirama instead of the warriors they had always been and were meant to be. He watched, uncaring as the Uchiha started to resent the place they lived in and the people they protected .

They hadn’t believed him when he warned them, when he told them this would happen. They had betrayed him when he had tried to help, when he had shouted to the apathetic faces of his clansmen of the future he knew was sure to come. Now, when what Madara had predicted was becoming reality, Madara wouldn’t do a damned thing to help them.

( _ Itachi, on the other hand… Madara would rather die a thousand deaths then let the Uchiha’s foolishness hurt his little brother _ )

.

.

.

Attending the Academy was mind numbing. Madara and Hashirama had learned all the physical and theoretical aspects of shinobi life a hundred years previous, which meant the only interesting part was learning about history and the various advancements in jutsu, technology, and medicine that had occurred since they had died. 

( _ Hashirama was ecstatic to learn his granddaughter had taken after him with her talent in healing and had inspired a revolution in medical advancement. Injuries that Hashirama would have never dreamed of being able to fix were now simple to heal and Hashirama couldn’t be more proud of his granddaughter for achieving everything she had _ )

Madara found all the classes boring, the theoretical ones especially. He knew he wasn’t alone in this either, because he had caught Hashirama nodding off in class several times. The two had resorted to having written conversations in a code designed to look like they were taking notes to pass the time. Even then, there were days when the monotony of the Academy seemed unbearable.

The hours that came after school was a time to be enjoyed. Unlike during class, they were free to spend their time however they wished and weren’t burdened by the inexperience of their classmates. Sometimes, they would train together during the afternoon, careful to do so away from prying eyes. Sometimes they would do other things as well. Skipping stones remained a staple, but other things found their way into their schedule.

Some days, when they were feeling hungry or lazy, they would go out to a ramen stand by the name of Ichiraku Ramen and eat there. It wasn’t often they were able to eat at a restaurant--due to so many kicking Hashirama out--and Ichiraku Ramen was one of the few places that didn’t mind the two of them spending time there. It helped that Hashirama had gained a taste for the food, though Madara remained indifferent to the flavor. 

Today, the two of them had wandered down to the stand to get something to eat after their lessons at the Academy was over. The day’s lesson had covered kunai, shuriken, and how to throw them accurately and the two needed something to eat to get away from the frustration of having to learn something they already knew how to do. It was at the stand that Madara decided he would tell Hashirama of the situation with the Uchiha.

“I saw robins the other day,” he told Hashirama, accepting the bowl of ramen from Teuchi-san as he did so. ( _ Traitors are in Konoha _ )

Hashirama glanced over at him casually. To anyone else, he simply looked curious, but Madara could see the undertone of worry in his expression. “Really? Where did you see them?” ( _ Who are the traitors? _ )

“The east,” ( _ The Uchiha _ ) Madara replied, something dark swirling in his gut. “They’re nesting in a place they shouldn’t and they keep flying towards dusk.” ( _ They are planning something. It will be violent _ )

They spoke in an old code, one they had come up with on one of the more boring days of Konoha’s construction. They had based a large portion of the code on their own experiences, therefore making it extremely difficult to understand it if one didn’t know Madara and Hashirama very well. The only person they had ever taught the entire code to was Tobirama, though the Nara Clan head of the time--an extremely sharp women by the name of Shikako--had managed to figure out a small portion of it. Both of them were dead, which made it safe for the two of them to use it to discuss as sensitive a topic as traitors was.

The possibility of traitors in Konoha was not a thing to be treated lightly.

Hashirama gained a pensive look on his face. “You’re certain?”

“I am.”

Hashirama fell silent and stared at his ramen bowl. Suddenly, he wasn’t so hungry anymore. The Uchiha were traitors? What were they planning? Was there anyway to stop them?

“Is there anything we can do?” Hashirama asked, turning to face Madara. “I’d rather not see the robins get in trouble.”

“Nothing.” Madara shook his head. “However, I do want to tell Itachi about them. No doubt he’ll do something foolish if he dosen’t know.”

“Hm?” Hashirama hummed. “How much do you want to tell him?”

Madara closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, hands gripping the counter of the ramen stand. He mulled it over in his head for a moment, going over various situations and solutions. Finally, he came to a decision. He would trust his brother.

“Everything.”

( _ The word sounded like the final toll of a bell, rung to signal the funeral march of a man fallen to the ground, dead and gone to the world _ )

Hashirama nodded solemnly. “When?”

_ (A grandfather clock rung somewhere in the universe, it’s sound making ripples in the crisscrossing strings of fate; like a stone thrown in a still pond _ )

“He should be back from his mission today. Let’s take him to the river tomorrow and tell him there.”

( _ And so it was done)  _

**Omake** :

Madara and Hashirama were eating at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. It was one of the few places that didn’t throw Naruto out, so the two often headed there to eat. 

It was also at the Ichiraku stand that Madara decided to drop a bomb on Hashirama.

“I’m pretty sure my clan is planning a coup.”

Hashirama froze. He didn’t move for the whole of 2 minutes and Madara was starting to worry that his friend had broken when Hashirama suddenly set his chopsticks down and slowly turned to Madara.

“ _ What? _ ”

“My clan is planning a coup.”

Hashirama stared at his friend for a moment longer, before he sighed and banged his head on the table. “Kami damn it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

In a way, it was ironic. Before Madara and Hashirama had worked together to access Hashirama’s mindscape, finding a way in felt like a civilian facing a mountain and trying to force it to move with nothing more than their own physical strength. Now, after they had used the trick with the sharingan to find a way, it was simple to get back in.

( _ He had been stumbling around in the dark when Madara had lit the way to the door. Now he knew where it was, and it was easy to find the path again _ )

Hashirama had gone back to his mindscape several times since the first visit, both so he could relax in his old body ( _ he missed the feeling of decades old callosus on his hands, of the many scars that decorated his skin, of wind in his long brown hair, and his familiar adult body so different from that of a child’s _ ) and so he could alter his mindscape into something far more comfortable than the sewer it had once been.

( _ The Senju compound was something he held dear to his heart. He loved the winding hallways, the old trees by the outer walls, and the little garden where the women of the clan loved to sit and drink tea. There was a little pond there with koi fish swimming about, so lovely a sight they had always been _ )

He hadn’t ever gone to visit the Kyuubi again after the first time. Not once. Maybe he was scared to visit the fox and see those hateful, red eyes turned at him. Perhaps it was guilt that such a beast was sealed by the women he loved, that Hashirama was the reason the beast’s siblings were no longer free. He didn’t know why he didn’t go, only that he couldn’t.

( _ All he knew was whenever he considered going, whenever he thought of wandering to the cage the Kyuubi was trapped in--wrapped in a shadowy black fog and left restless for the freedom it had held for centuries before Mito and Hashirama had come along--all he could think of was the rage he had seen in the Bijuu’s eyes. The all-encompassing hate which had been directed at him and his friend _ )

Wandering the halls of the Senju compound was nostalgic. ( _ How many years had passed since he lad last stepped in those halls? _ ) It always almost felt as if the Valley of the End had never happened, that he had never died and all he would have to do to see his family again was turn a corner and say “ _ Hello _ .” 

It was peaceful here; just on the edge of life, as if any moment a member of the Senju clan would walk around the corner and greet him. The only thing missing was the sound of life--footsteps, paper rustling, quiet chatter, food cooking--and that was calming. It was something he needed for the upcoming confrontation--the calm that was. Telling Itachi everything was a gamble; they didn’t know how he would react to Sasuke being Madara and Naruto being Hashirama. They had been hiding so much from him for so long and anyone would feel betrayed when faced with that situation. 

Hashirama needed this conversation to go well. He knew for a fact that Madara had been worrying about this since the decision was made to tell Itachi the other day and Hashirama didn’t want to watch Madara break should Itachi reject him.

( _ Madara was filled with so many cracks, so many creaking breaks in his mind from his years spent drowning in madness. He wouldn’t be able to handle someone he loves leaving him _ )

For Madara’s sake, he needed Itachi to accept everything. Hashirama didn’t want to watch the fallout that would occur if he didn’t.

Hashirama paused when he passed by the entrance to Tobirama’s room. He had left all of his memories of his late brother there. It was painful to think back on his brother at times. Tobirama had died when Hashirama wasn’t there to protect him. Hashirama hadn’t been there to watch how his brother helped the village grow. He hadn’t been there to watch Tobirama’s students flourish. He wasn’t there because he died fighting Madara.

Hashirama hadn’t been there when Tobirama died.

( _ Tobirama was dead. Was this how Madara had felt when Izuna had died? This sadness, this rage, this unfairness of the universe. How dare they take his brother from him, his family from him, his life from him _ )

Hashirama had known, somewhere in the back of his mind, his brother was dead. Roughly 50 years had passed since Hashirama and Madara died fighting at the Valley of the End. Tobirama might be a good ninja, among the best to have ever lived, but even he wasn’t infallible to time’s effects. It was exceedingly unlikely that Tobirama would have survived to this day. But even knowing this intellectually, it still hadn’t felt real--not until the lecture at the Academy covering his death. Now, it choked him up to think of his little brother, the last of his siblings, the only family who had stood by his side the entire way ( _ no matter how many arguments they may have had along the way _ ) was dead and buried. He was dead. 

He was dead and Hashirama would never see him again.

( _ Hashirama had cried that night when he and Madara had gone to visit his brother’s and his wife’s graves. He had cried at the unfairness of it all, raged at the fact they were gone and never coming back. _

_ Madara had never mentioned it after he did _ )

Hashirama turned away from Tobirama’s room and kept walking, centering himself and his thoughts with each step he took. Madara was off collecting his brother from the Uchiha compound and the two would be arriving at the river ( _ they always met at the river _ ) at any moment. He needed to be ready for them when they arrived.

“Naruto-kun?” 

( _ There was shock in that voice, disbelief at the events occurring before the speaker. The world had turned on it’s head with one single name, one event in a cluster of an unbelievable collection _ )

Hashirama opened his eyes, blinking to shake off the disorientation that came with the shift from his adult body into his child one. He glanced over to where Madara stood, Itachi just behind him, and smiled warmly at them. He could see the look of shock on Itachi’s face, hidden well enough that anyone not well acquainted with the Uchiha clan wouldn’t be able to tell anything was there. It was mildly amusing to see the usually unflappable brother of Madara so thrown.

Then again, anyone would be surprised if they saw a supposed Academy student meditating while sitting on top of a running river. No normal 8 year old would be able to do such a thing.

Hashirama stood and walked over to Madara and Itachi, smiling all the while. “Hello Sasuke. Itachi-san.”

“Hello Naruto-kun…” Itachi murmured, only the slightest wavering--unnoticeable to most--present in his voice. Hashirama applauded him. Itachi was very good at masking his emotions. He would do well in infiltration and spy work.

“Sasuke?” Hashirama looked in Madara’s direction. “You’re the one who wanted to tell him. Where do you want to begin?”

A glimmer of interest and concern went through Itachi’s eyes, gone as quickly as it came. Madara took a deep breath, steadying himself, and spoke. “First, I would like us all to sit down. This conversation has the potential to go on for a while, and I’d rather be seated if it does.”

Itachi glanced between Hashirama and Madara while they sat down on the forest floor. He looked like he had all sorts of questions running through his head, and there was weariness and worry present as well. 

Madara looked Itachi straight in the eye, crossing his arms and tilting his head back. “What are your thoughts on Senju Hashirama?” he asked.

Itachi tilted his head a bit to one side--an action not unlike a bird’s--and seemed to think over the question. There was confusion in his expression when he answered. “He is the founder of the village, and I can respect him for that. His strength, as well, is legendary. Something to be both feared and admired. He was a good Hokage.”

Madara nodded before bracing himself for the next question. “And what are your thoughts on Uchiha Madara?”

Itachi frowned, only a slight downwards pull of his lips to signify his thoughts. There was suspicion in his gaze now, a familiarity with the name beyond what one would expect from a boy who had never known Madara as anyone other than Sasuke. “My opinions are… mixed. He created the village along side Hashirama-sama, but he left and later came back to destroy everything he built. It… confuses me at times that he would do that. The stories paint him as an impressive figure, someone terryinging. He is to be both respected and wary of. Sasuke? Why this line of questioning?”

Madara swallowed and took another deep breath. “One final question.” His voice was level, but Hashirama could see the nervousness in his gaze. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Itachi’s eyes narrowed in confusion, his eyes turning thoughtful. Then, they widened and his jaw grew slack. Hashirama raised his brows. The boy was smart. Hashirama had been certain they would need to do more than simply imply their situation with a question for Itachi to understand.

“Reincarnation?” There was disbelief both in his voice and his eyes. Complexe emotions ran through them as he glanced from Madara to Hashirama and back again. Hashirama had no doubt that he was running through every interaction they had ever had through his mind, going over them and looking for proof of what they were saying. “That would mean that… You are…”

Madara smiled bitterly. “That I am Madara? Yes. I am Uchiha Madara. Uchiha Sasuke and Uchiha Madara are one in the same. As are Uzumaki Naruto and Senju Hashirama one in the same as well.”

Itachi’s eyes were still wide. His mouth tightened, spreading out into a thin line. There was a wide variety of emotions flashing through them and for a moment, Hashirama worried that Itachi wasn’t going to believe them. It was a difficult thing to accept, after all. To suddenly find out that your little brother and his best friend are in fact these powerful historical figures. The sheer impossibility of it all still baffled Hashirama at times, and he had been living this situation for years now. His fears were, however, put to rest when Itachi spoke again. “How?”

“We don’t know,” Hashirama answered. He bowed his head and sighed. “All we know is that we both died at the Valley of the End. Both of us were certain that was going to be the end, but it wasn’t. We don’t know how it happened or why we are in the situation we are. All we know is that one day we were dead and the next we were here. It doesn't help that we didn’t remember everything all at once. It took months before all of our memories were restored and since then we’ve been focused on avoiding attention. We’d rather not have to face people who would kill us for our past, or use us for our potential before we have strength enough to defeat them.

“We had planned to continue like this for a while longer, but the situation has changed since we made that decision. Itachi-san. The reason why we’ve decided to tell you all this is because of the Uchiha. Tell me, is the Uchiha clan planning a coup?”

Itachi sat frozen, gaze going back and forth between Hashirama and Madara. Hashirama could feel that Madara was stiff as a board beside him, appearing relaxed to the world even if he was anything but. Madara was terrified of this confrontation, of its outcome, and now that they had told Itachi exactly who they were, there was no turning back. If Itachi reacted badly, they would have to live with the result. 

( _ Madara was never again going to be “just Sasuke” to Itachi. He would never be the same little boy that Itachi had grown to love. Sasuke was Madara and Madara was Sasuke and Itachi would never be able to forget _ )

Itachi opened his mouth, then closed it. A moment later he opened it again, only to shut it once more. As his words seemed to be failing him, he opted to nod his head.

Hashirama grimaced. “So it is true then… Our fears have been confirmed.”

“Itachi,” said Madara, calling attention over to him.

Itachi turned to face him. “Yes, Sa-” he cut himself off and frowned. “Madara?” 

( _ His voice sounded uncertain when he stumbled over the name. Was he Sasuke or was he Madara? Was he Madara or was he Sasuke? Itachi didn’t know anymore _ )

“Sasuke is fine.” 

Itachi’s gaze didn’t leave Madara as he nodded. “Alright. Sasuke it is.”

“Nii-san, I want you to know that I wasn't faking anything between us. You are my brother, regardless of my past life. I love my brothers more than anything in the world. That is how it is and how it shall always be. Never doubt that.” Madara looked serious as he spoke, with an unwavering certainty in his voice. It seemed to relax Itachi as well, the tenseness in his shoulders relaxing and a small smile appearing on his face.

Hashirama grinned at the scene. “Good, good! I’m glad to see your relationship won’t suffer for this. Madara was quite worried about your reaction to all this, you know.”

Madara twitched, but didn’t dispute the statement. Itachi looked surprised, a glimmer of amusement entering his expression. He seemed calmer now, less in shock than before. It was good to see that he was at the very least relatively accepting of the situation. 

“Enough of that,” Madara stated. “We have a coup to discuss and we need to decide what to do about it.”

Hashirama sombered and nodded, growing serious once more. “We do. I would rather end this with as little bloodshed as possible, but whether we can do that or not depends on the current situation more than anything else. Itachi-san. Can you tell us more about the coup?”

Itachi nodded. “I believe it was the elders who first proposed it, though I’m not entirely certain of this. Many of the adults have started supporting the idea. Otou-san included. They started to plan the actual coup only recently. Sandaime-sama knows of the coup and is attempting to negotiate, but Otou-san and the elders don’t look like they are going to budge on the issue. Shisui and I have been acting as double agents, supplying information to both Sandaime-sama, the village elders, and the clan.

“The village elders?” Madara questioned.

Itachi nodded again. “Homura Mitokado, Koharu Utatane, and Danzo Shimura.”

Madara scowled just as Hashirama’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Ah,” Hashirama said. “Tobirama’s students. I remember them.”

“Hn.” Madara looked extremely displeased, just as he always did when Tobirama was brought up.

“Danzo-sama seems to be moving on his own, although I don’t know what he has planned.” Itachi paused. “There is one more thing you ought to know.”

“Which is?” Hashirama prompted.

“There is a figure,” Itachi began, looking pensive. “who has been wandering around the outskirts of the village, especially near the compound. His chaka feels like an Uchiha’s, however I am certain he is not a current member of the clan. Before now, I had suspected him to be Madara--or rather you--though now I know this not to be the case.”

“You suspected he was me?” Madara asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Why?”

“His chakra,” Itachi responded. “He is powerful and there is no doubt he is an Uchiha. There have been no nukenin Uchiha other than you, only a great number of dead from missions and war. And…”

“And?”

“His eyes.”

Madara raised a brow. “His eyes?”

“Yes, his eyes,” said Itachi. “Or more accurately, his eye. He wears a mask that completely covers his face, bar his right eye. During my encounter with him, I saw an unusual pattern instead of tomor in his sharingan.”

Madara’s eyes widened. “Then he has the Mangekyo…”

Itachi nodded, “Yes. Currently, there aren’t many Uchiha who have activated the Mangekyo Sharingan. Shisui has the Mangekyo, but the pattern is different than the one I saw. All other Uchiha who have been recorded as having a Mangekyo sharingan have been recovered and confirmed dead. All but yours, that is. Your body was never found after the fight at the Valley of the End, so we only ever had Senju Mito’s word to confirm your death. It was possible, no matter how unlikely, that you had somehow survived. I could find no other logical explanation, though I must reconsider my theory now.”

Madara and Hashirama exchanged a worried glance. News of an unknown Uchiha with the Mangekyo was worrying. Hashirama crossed his arms and sighed. “To borrow a phrase from the Nara, this is troublesome. The situation is made only more complicated with the appearance of this unknown figure. Itachi-san, do you believe he will interfere with the coup?”

“I am certain he will.”

Hashirama grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. It felt like the situation was getting more complicated by the moment. “I feared so. Madara, what do you think?”

“I’m unsure,” Madara admitted. “I’ve never liked dealing with things like this. My approach to handling traitors is rather straightforward, but the method won’t work here. For once, I find myself uncertain about what to do.”

Hashirama nodded before turning back to Itachi. “I have a request for you. I ask that you keep an eye on the situation and give us any more information that you can. I believe we should observe the situation for a while longer before acting.

Itachi bowed, “Of course, Shodai-sama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	11. Shikamaru Interlude

The first day of the Academy was a boring one. Nara Shikamaru, a typical Nara in just about every way, probably would have slept through the entire thing ( _ as Nara were known to do _ ) had it not been for a strange comment he had hear from his father the morning before he left.

( _ “You might want to keep an eye on your classmates. There are some interesting figures in your class this year.” _ )

Shikamaru had gone to the Academy and met up with his friends Akimichi Chouji and Yamanaka Ino. ( _ He was his best friend, Chouji, and Ino was his friend too, even if she was a troublesome blonde _ ) They had gone and listened to the stupid speech and then headed over to their assigned classroom, relaxed by the fact the three of them wouldn’t be separated by their assignments.

Once there, Ino had immediately gone and gathered a number of the girls in the class, civilian and clan born alike, and started gossiping with them. Choji and Shikamaru had picked a seat at random and sat down to wait for class to begin. Normally, this was where Shikamaru would have laid his head down on his desk and taken a nap, but the words his father had spoken to him swirled in his mind and refused to let him rest. So instead of sleeping like he wanted, Shikamaru laid his head down on his arms and did what he did best.

He observed.

No one in the class seemed interesting. Inuzuka Kiba was loud and brash, chatting loudly with the boy who sat next to him. Aburame Shino and Hyuuga Hinata both sat next to each other in the back corner of the room, Shino quietly doing something with his bugs and Hinata casting nervous glances around the room. Chouji was munching away on chips next to him, just as he always did. Ino continued chattering away with the girls she had surrounded herself with. No civilians stood out in particular, though there was a rather quiet looking girl with bright pink hair that stood out among the plainer looking civilian born children.

( _ But he was missing something. It itched at the back of his neck and told him to sharpen his eyes, danger it whispered _ )

Shikamaru didn’t notice them at first, their presence was so suppressed. It was only when the two teachers, Inomata-sensei and Yamanaka-sensei called out the names of all the students present that Shikamaru saw them. They sat in the back of the room on the opposite side as Shio and Hinata. 

Those two, they were the only ones that could have possibly caught his father’s interest.

In the coming months, Shikamaru continued to observe the two.

( _ Such an odd pair, those two. Opposites in nearly every way _ )

One of the two was the village pariah, Uzumaki Naruto. Everything about him was bright and sunny. His hair was a bright blond and his eyes were a startling blue. His skin was tanned and he had three distinctive marks on each of his cheeks. Even the clothing he wore was light, the color usually staying in the earthy tones of green and light brown. He was always smiling and wasn’t afraid of reaching out to people, though everyone shied away whenever he did. The civilian born children especially stayed away from him, and they warned all their friends to as well.

( _ Stay away! Stay away! Don’t go near! _ )

In contrast, Uchiha Sasuke was everything Uzumaki Naruto was not. His hair was dark, his skin was pale, his eyes were black. His clothing, too, stuck with dark blues, blacks, and purples with only white shorts to lighten the color scheme. He had an aura that hung around him, something dark and heavy that warned people away. He ignored everyone’s attempts at friendships, never reached out to anyone other than Naruto, and when he picked up a gaggle of fangirls, he turned down all of their advances as well.

( _ The two were night and day--sun and moon--so different, and yet they got along so well _ )

Their skills were rather odd as well. Shikamaru doubted anyone else noticed, but the two rarely opened their textbooks in any class other than history, and yet they were able to answer just about any question thrown at them. When second year rolled around and practical lessons were introduced, they stayed ahead of everyone there, too. They never needed very much instruction at all, and neither of them ever lost a spar.

There were times when Sasuke scared him. The speed and grace that he moved with would seem nearly inhuman, were it not for the fact Shikamaru had seen other shinobi move faster before. He was oddly knowledgeable in all the darker topics they covered--deadly traps, poisons, and the weak points of the human body. He wasn’t afraid to use the knowledge either, and he took his opponents down in his spars with a ruthless efficiency. His fighting style was swift and fluid, constantly moving. 

( _ “Shall we dance?” _ )

Sometimes when no one else was looking, Shikamaru saw something swirling behind Sasuke’s eyes, something old and terrifying. A part of Shikamaru wanted to know what it was he was thinking of when he looked like that. A larger, more sane, part of him decided he would never try and find out.

Naruto was different, though no less strange. He always scored first when they covered first aid and looked happy whenever they covered anything involving the technological and medical revolutions that had occurred since Konoha’s founding. Occasionally, when they covered Konoha’s founding, he would get an indecipherable look on his face. 

( _ At times, Hashirama wanted to laugh at the way history had been recorded or shout out “That’s wrong! That’s not what happened!” History had been written so that all his mistakes seemed to vanish. No one seemed to want to remember Hashirama’s flaws or Madara’s triumphs. Everyone wanted to forget _ ) 

Naruto was very strong as well, though it was difficult to see unless you watched very carefully. His style was sturdier than Sasuke’s was, he tended to wait for his opponent to attack him first rather than diving in as Sasuke tended to do. He wasn’t as ruthless as Sasuke was either. Rather, he always seemed to hold back just enough that his opponent would have a chance. Sometimes, Shikamaru swore that Naruto was even subtly correcting his opponent’s stances during the spar.

At 7 years old, Shikamaru had watched the pair for more than a year and still had yet to make heads or tails of them. His father was right about interesting figures, though why the Jounin Commander was interested in a pair of children, regardless of the family one of them came from and the statues of the other among the villagers, Shikamaru did not know. 

Regardless of why his father had told Shikamaru of the strangeness of these two figures, Shikamaru was glad he had been told. The two were odd--very, very strange.

It was so very interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	12. Chapter 12

Inside of the bathroom, there was no sound other than the rushing of water from the faucet in the sink. It roared, loud to his ears, but Madara payed it no mind. He gripped the edge of the sink with his hands and stared into the mirror. He hated what he saw there.

( _ This was Izuna’s face, not his. It was Izuna’s Izuna’s  _ **_Izuna’s_ ** _. Why did he have Izuna’s face, he didn’t want Izuna’s face _ )

In his reflection, he felt as if he could see all of his past mistakes laid out before him. Madara felt useless in the face of recent events, felt self-hatred burn and boil in his gut like a raging storm had brewed in his stomach. 

( _He was Dead Dead Dead and lying on the ground and wasn’t moving and there was_ **nothing he could do** )

Uchiha Shisui had been pronounced dead. He had vanished one day, telling no one of where he was going. The only hint of what had happened was the note recovered from his room. According to the note, he had committed suicide. No corpse was ever been found, and Itachi had looked hollow ever since the discovery was made.

Madara suspected there was more to Shisui’s death than first appeared. If there was no body, where had it gone? Not to mention the Uchiha were in the middle of planning a coup. Shisui wasn’t the type of person to kill themselves in the middle of everything, not when he was acting as a double agent. 

It just didn’t make any sense.

( _ “Yo, Sasuke. How has your day been? Going to stay with me and Itachi again? Geeze! You’re so clingy sometimes. Are you never going to let me have your brother for myself? Sasuke! Want me to teach you something cool? What?! What do you mean I’d never be able to teach you something? Hahaha! You’re a funny guy, Sasuke, with sarcasm like that. See you tomorrow, little man. Maybe I’ll teach you something else.” _ )

Madara also suspected that Danzo was making his move. He was certain Danzo had told Itachi something that had Itachi worried. What it was, Madara had no idea. Itachi wasn’t telling him anything and it frustrated Madara quite a bit. He was Itachi’s brother, regardless of if he was Madara or Sasuke or neither or both. No matter what name he carried, his love for his family would never change. 

( _ You lied to him, a voice echoed in his mind. Dirty, filthy, rotten liar who let his little brother die _ )

Madara’s grip on the sink tightened. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, shaking dark thoughts away from the forefront of his mind. The water from the tap still rushed down the drain. He was wasting water, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

Things were moving too quickly these days, and Madara felt like he was struggling to keep up. He found he missed the peaceful lull of his days spent in Academy classes unworried about clan politics, the afternoons wasted away by spending time with Hashirama, the times between Itachi’s missions when Madara would soak up every moment with his brother that he could.

He missed Itachi not knowing.

( _ Liar, liar--filthy, rotten liar _ )

Itachi had been acting strange since Madara and Hashirama had revealed to him about their identities. He seemed just a bit more hesitant to talk with Madara, his smiles were just the slightest bit forced.  Madara knew he should have expected it. ( _ Madara’s name was something used to strike fear in the hearts of many, why wouldn’t it scare them? _ ) He knew better than to think the revelation of Sasuke having all the memories of Uchiha Madara--the S-clan nukenin famous for attacking Konoha and killing the Shodai Hokage--wouldn’t change their relationship for the better.

He was foolish for hoping otherwise.

( _ The world was such a cruel place. When had he ever begun to believe otherwise? _ )

“Sasuke?” Mikoto’s voice came from the other side of the bathroom door. “Are you alright in there?”

“I’m fine,” he responded, twisting the knobs by the fauset to cut off the water flow. The sudden silence was disconcerting, sending chills down his arms. “I was just thinking.”

Madara went to the door and opened to to gaze up at the women who was his mother in this life. ( _ wrongwrong wrong, this wasn’t his mother, his mother was dead _ ) She looked not unlike the mother from Madara’s last life; though her face was softer, the shape of her eyes was off, and she held herself differently from how Akane had before she died. Unlike Akane, Mikoto had served as  shinobi, retiring only when she had become pregnant with Itachi. It showed in her movements, in the grace she walked with, and the way her eyes seemed to track the movements of everyone in the room. Akane had never been allowed out onto the battlefield, had always been told to stay home where it was safer.

Mikoto frowned at him, a worried look in her eyes. Madara hated her for that. He hated her for mothering him, for her concerned looked and her kind actions.

( _ “Welcome home, Sasuke.” Mikoto smiled at him. “Did you have a nice day at the Academy?” _ )

Madara really was a fool.

“Really now?” Mikoto raised a brow at him, though the concern in her eyes stayed. “Well, you can think at the breakfast table. You have class today, mister.”

Madara nodded absently and made his way to the table. He ate his breakfast, ignoring the heavy stares of Fugaku and Mikoto with a practiced ease. He didn’t care about either of them. He really didn’t.

( _ At least, that’s what he kept telling himself _ )

.

.

.

Hashirama and Madara fell away from each other, panting from exhaustion. They laid there for a while, attempting to catch their breath. The two had been improving by leaps and bounds in recent times and were slowly but surely returning to their former strength. They were nowhere near their peaks just yet, but the illusive strength of their prime didn’t feel like a distant dream anymore.

“I… won…” Hashirama gasped, a triumphant grin on his face. He looked so stupidly happy about this, he radiated joy. These days, it was a tossup who won their challenges and more often than not they ended up with a draw. It only made them both to push themselves harder, trying to outpace the other.

“Bastard,” Madara ground out, grimacing as he attempted to sit up. He knew he hadn’t broken anything--he knew what a broken rib felt like and this certainly wasn’t it--but he hurt like hell anyways and he was certain he would still be feeling this in the morning. Hashirama had always been a hard hitter, and now was no exception. The fact that Hashirama more often than not healed from Madara’s attacks much more quickly only made matters that much more annoying.

Stupid Senju-Uzumaki vitality.

Hashirama laughed only to cut himself off with a grimace. Ha. Madara had gotten plenty solid hits in as well. He wasn’t the only one who was going to suffer. “Shall we end it for the day?” Hashirama asked. “It’s getting pretty late. We have the Academy to attend tomorrow and you’re family is probably getting worried by now.”

“Hn.” Madara was too tired to come up with a more lengthy response.

The two of them got to their feet and started on the track back to the village from the training ground they favored for these sorts of spars. It was a different one than the one they skipped stones at. It was just as secluded as the other one and held a fairly large clearing for training. Off to one side was some tall wooden posts for practice and a few years ago, Itachi had helped Madara set up some targets in hard to see places in the trees to throw kunai at.

“Any news about the robins?” Hashirama asked. There had been no news recently other than the suspicious circumstances surrounding Shisui’s death and Itachi’s sudden distance.

Madara shook his head in a negative. “Nothing. I suspect something has changed, but Itachi isn’t telling me anything. Maybe you’ll be able to get it out of him, he certainly won’t talk to me about it.”

Hashirama grimaced and nodded. His eyes narrowed, glinting in the evening light. “I see… I’ll try and speak with him when I next see him. Sasuke?”

“Hn?”

“I’m getting a bad feeling about all of this. Be careful, alright? And know I’ll be here if you need anything.”

Madara paused in his steps and looked at Hashirama. With his wild blond hair, bright blue eyes, and whisker marks, there was little resemblance to how he had looked in their last life. Nearly four years since they had found each other again in the park on the hill, and Madara still found it difficult to link this new appearance to the old one he knew. He still wasn’t used to seeing it.

Just like his own.

( _ Thief, liar, traitor _ )

Madara nodded and the two started walking again. Something pleasant coiled in his mind at the thought of Hashirama staying by his side. Madara had done so much wrong over the years, performed so many acts others would have deemed too inhuman with ease. And yet, despite so many people thinking of Madara as a monster, Hashirama wouldn’t leave him.

( _ After all the people he’s killed--brothers, sisters, mother’s, fathers, the guilty, the damned, the innocent, the undeserving--and all the things he’s broken, betrayed, and stolen. Even after attacking the thing Hashirama valued most, after trying to destroy his dreams, after slaughtering so many, Hashirama still stood by his side. _

_ Sometimes, Madara didn’t know what to think about that _ )

When they reached a fork in the road, the two took separate paths. Hashirama trailed deeper into the village proper to where his apartment was and Madara went along the path that lead to where the Uchiha Compound stood along the outskirts.

As he walked, the sun started to set and Madara thought it made it look like the horizon was on fire. ( _ They burned and burned, devoured by his flames, their screams echoed in his ears _ ) It was pleasant to look at, especially from a high vantage point. There was a reason Hashirama and Madara’s favorite spot in the village was on top of the Hokage Monument and it wasn’t just because of their childhood memories.

Even before, when Hashirama was Hokage and people were only just starting to flock to the village, they had often gone up there to waste the day away. More than one time, they had spent too long a time up there and Tobirama had to come and drag them down. Madara remembered one instance where he had tried to drag Hashirama down to finish the paperwork piling up in the Hokage’s office. When Hashirama had refused, the look on Tobirama’s face was hilarious.

( _ “Anija! You can’t just keep dumping all the paperwork on me and Mito! You’re the one who wanted to make the village, you have to do your share of work!” _

_ “Aww, come on Tobirama! Can’t I stay just a little longer?” _ )

The sound of the village was peaceful and it put thoughts of reincarnation, the coup, and dead brothers at the back of his mind. He needed times like this where he could just wander and not worry about anything. He needed times where his ghosts didn’t hang so close as they usually did.

He’d go mad otherwise.

Madara turned another corner and walked onto the main road leading to the Uchiha compound. Absently, he watching the movements in the window of an apartment complex situated just a short way down from the front gates. Madara guessed the family living there was either gearing up for a late dinner or were settling down to do something else. He looked away from them and kept walking.

He finally reached the gates to the compound and paused.

( _ Where are the guards…? _ )

Madara’s breath hitched and he ran forward with a sudden burst of speed. Itachi was suddenly at the forefront of his mind. What happened? Had Danzo made his move? Had Sarutobi? The elders? What was going on?

Madara lost himself to running. He circulated chakra through his limbs to alleviate the tiredness and the pain from earlier training. He focused on getting to the main house. He had to check of Itachi, Mikoto, and Fugaku.

The streets were empty. ( _ Where was everyone? _ ) There was no sound here. Only his breath and the beating of his heart pounding in his ears. No one was at the gates. No one was on the streets. There was no one anywhere.

That’s when he came across the first set of bodies.

He recognized one of his aunts and her husband. They ran a small dango stand Itachi often took him too. Sometimes, when he was on his way home from the Academy, he and Hashirama would stop by and they would be given sweets. Now they lay prone on the ground, a pool of blood slowly spreading out around them. 

They had been killed quickly. Probably hadn’t even seen their killer with how fast they had died. There was no excess wounds. It was a very clean kill.

And they were dead.

So very dead.

( _ The sun set and the world turned black. Stars twinkled as the full moon shone mockingly down at him. Such a tragedy, they crooned. So very tragic _ )

Laughter bubbled up in his throat. He started laughing and couldn’t bring himself to stop. He couldn’t stop. Why couldn’t he stop? He laughed at the irony. He laughed at his circumstances. He laughed at his hatred. He laughed at his family. He laughed at  _ everything _ . He laughed and laughed and laughed. 

Madara’s mind cracked.

( _ Why am I crying? _ )

He took a deep breath. He ran.

( _ I have to get there, I have to find them, I have to, I can’t fail them, not again not again not again _ )

There was body after body laid on the streets. The walls were splattered crimson. The ground was macabre art. The world was a morbid painting. Madara ran passed it all. He was an S-rank nukenin. Blood, regardless of to whom it belonged, didn’t phase him.

He arrived at the main house and slammed the door open. He dropped his school bag. He went inside without bothering to take off his shoes.

He moved straight for the only source of chakra he could feel.

( _ Please… _ )

As he was standing before the door leading to the familiar chakra signature of his brother, Madara paused. His hands were shaking. They hadn’t shook so hard in decades. He couldn’t remember the last time his hands had shook this much. Had they shook this hard when he was a child? When he really was as young as he appeared to be?

He opened the door.

“Outoto.”

Itachi stood there, tanto gleaming in the moonlight. It was splattered with the blood of their family, stained red with their sins. Before him lay the bodies of Mikoto and Fugaku.

“Itachi.”

Madara stared at Itachi, the weight of all the death settling on his shoulders. “You did this.”

It was a statement. Not a question.

“I did.”

Madara’s lips thinned into a line and his sharingan unconsciously activated under his duress. The world went into sharp relief, every detail of Itachi’s appearance forever etched into his mind.

“Why?”

Itachi stepped over the corpses of their parents, his gate smooth and graceful. He walked slowly over to Madara, his footsteps making no sound as he walked. Madara didn’t bother to move. He was exhausted after training all afternoon long with Hashirama, and as skilled as he was, in his current body was no match for Itachi. He wouldn’t be able to fight him. He wouldn’t be able to run.

If Itachi wanted to kill him, it would be all too easy.

Madara looked up at Itachi’s face, memorizing every line. He saw tear stains and redness around his eyes. He saw tiredness, resignation, regret, and grief. He saw the slump of Itachi’s shoulders, the pain etched into an otherwise emotionless expression.

Madara looked and he saw.

And he didn’t move.

The tanto clattered to the ground, the sound all too loud in the silence of the compound. Itachi dropped to his knees before Madara and wrapped his arms tight around him. Madara stood still as stone in his grip, even as tremors ran through Itachi’s shoulders, arms, and hands.

“Danzo issued an ultimatum.” 

Itachi whispered the words as if they were something that should never be said. They were soft and full of hurt and grief. Madara let Itachi speak.

“He gave me a choice. Kill the clan myself and you live. Let him do it and you die.”

The words swirled in Madara’s mind, buzzing like agitated bees.

“I couldn’t let him kill you.”

Madara couldn’t believe his ears.

“You’re my brother.”

“I...” Madara tried to speak, to say anything to the boy who was holding him as if Madara was the only thing real in the universe, as if should he ever let go the world would vanish around them. Itachi was 13 years old. Only  _ 13 years old _ . Madara had killed plenty of people at 13, but he had never ever had to kill a family member. He had never had to make that choice. Madara had to say something,  _ anything _ , to his brother, to Itachi who had just murdered their entire clan for him.

He didn’t know what to say.

( _ He never knew what to say _ )

Madara raised his arms up and wrapped them around Itachi, cursing his height and wishing that he could hold Itachi. “I’m sorry,” he said and he felt stupid for saying them. Madara might have hated the clan, but Itachi held it oh so very close to his heart. Itachi loved the clan, loved it just as much as he loved the village, and Madara knew exactly how much this night had killed Itachi.

“I’m  _ so  _ sorry.”

Itachi pulled away from the hug like it physically pained him to do so. His hands gripped Madara’s shoulder and a fresh stream of tears ran down his face. “Sasuke. The false Madara helped me with this. He offered to do so and in exchange I have to go and join his organization/ It’s a terrorist group called Akatsuki made up of high ranking nukenin. Keep an eye out for that name. Let Naruto know about this too.”

Madara nodded and felt regret when Itachi stood up and walked towards the open window. Itachi paused just as he reached the window, turning to look at Madara and smiling.

“I love you.”

Then he was gone.

Several hours later, Konoha’s ANBU found him standing stock still and unmoving, staring at the place where Itachi had stood. He hadn’t moved in all that time, Itachi’s words playing on repeat in his head.

( _ “I love you.” _ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	13. Chapter 13

“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”  _ CRASH _

_ (How long had it been since Madara had last let loose like this? Since he last lost himself in the destruction that could be wrought with the abilities of a shinobi?) _

It had been two weeks since the Uchiha Massacre. Two weeks since Madara had gone home only to be met with the corpses of his clansmen. Two weeks since Itachi and Madara had said their goodbyes.

( _ “I love you.” _ )

Madara took a deep breath, hands going through the seals for a fire jutsu with a familiar ease. He blew outwards, white hot flame scorching the land in front of him. Burning the ground wasn’t enough ( _ it was never enough _ ) so he attacked the land again with ninjutsu after ninjutsu. Eventually, he switched to taijutsu when setting things on fire proved to not be personal enough. He wreaked trees ( _ branches were scattered across the ground _ ) and rock ( _ broken pieces crunched underfoot _ ) and what had once been a river now was a small pool, the earth deformed enough that it couldn’t flow as it once had.

The parallels to the Valley of the End were startling.

( _ He choked on his blood. What was this? He looking down at the katana driven through his chest. Of course it would be a wood clone. He knew what those looked like, how stupid was he to forget? Was this how he was going to die? In this manmade valley, in a fight with Hashirama? He didn’t want to die.  _ **_He didn’t want to die_ ** )

He kept going, kept raging, kept burning and fighting and destroying the land, because at times it felt like that was the only thing he could do, the only thing he knew how to. He was a shinobi, born and raised on the blood of those he and his family cut down. He sat on a throne made of their rotting corpses, having fought tooth and nail to get to the top. 

( _ “I love you.” _ )

Madara collapsed on the ground. His body ached, the world around him had been scattered like ash in the wind. The rage which had swirled in him, consuming his mind and body like a hurricane devoured the land, was spent and gone, only so much dust left. Instead, there stretched a hollowness that Madara was all too familiar with. It was an emptiness that clawed at his insides and ate at his mind. 

“Madara.”

Madara didn’t bother to look up from where he lay in the shallow crater of his own creation, exhausted as he was both mentally and physically. He knew it was Hashirama anyways. No one else in the village knew to call him Madara and Hashirama’s familiar chakra ( _ water flowing like life blood through trees, freshly dug garden beds, cold stream rushing past _ ) burned in his senses.

( _ “I love you.” _ )

“What?” It was a cold response, just as bitter as it was somber. Madara’s grief burned hot and long, lingering far past what was healthy. Madara knew this, he had grieved far too many times before, but in that moment he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything right now.

His brother had left.

( _ “Did you hear? The Uchiha were killed. I heard it was the eldest brother.” _ )

( _ Shut up, he screamed in his head, Stop talking about my brother like that! _ )

( _ “The eldest brother?! Oh my! What a tragedy!” _ )

( _ He wanted to make them burn _ )

The sound of near silent footsteps on the ground reached Madara’s ears and told him that Hashirama had walked closer. There was a rustling of fabric as he sat down next to Madara, and then silence. They stayed there in that position for a while. Neither of them spoke, the two both reflecting upon recent events.

It seemed as if an eternity had passed when Hashirama spoke again. “I’ll listen,” he said softly. “I’ll always listen.”

Madara looked up at Hashirama, gazed at the shadows that marred Hashirama’s ( _ not his not his not his--where was Hashirama’s face? This wasn’t his wasn’t his wasn’t his _ ) face. He was reminded, in that moment, of the day Hashirama had nearly committed suicide and Madara had finally agreed to build the village. Madara had laid on the ground then, too, his anger spent and gone. Hashirama was still trying to convince Madara to build the village ( _ even when he should have just killed Madara and been done with it _ ) and had asked him if there was anyway to get Madara to trust the senju. 

( _ “Either kill your brother or kill yourself right now. Then we’ll be even. I’d be willing to trust your clan.” _ )

So foolish, Madara had thought when Hashirama spoke his last words and held a kunai to his own stomach. Did he really think this trick would work? Madara had wondered. But it wasn’t a trick. Hashirama’s honesty had been real. 

( _ “After my death, do not kill Madara. I forbid any fighting between the Uchiha and Senju. Swear this right now, upon the lives of your fathers and your grandchildren yet unborn. Farewell.” _ )

So too did it remind him of when he and Hashirama had lived in Konoha together. There had been a time when he had offered to listen to Madara’s woes then too. When they had drunk the night away and mourned the death of a women an entire decade gone.

The memories weighed heavily at the forefront of Madara’s mind.

( _ “… Madara? You shocked me earlier, when you said what you did. If you want to tell me, then I’ll listen.”) _

“You’re a fool,” Madara told him, even as there was no bite to the words. A deep rooted exhaustion was the only thing to be found in the words, a tiredness that prevailed over all other emotion. Why was it that Madara was always thrown to the ground like this? Was he truly so horrible a person that the Kami would decree for him to live such a life as the one he lived? Why else would they give him such a cruel fate? Why else would they take yet another brother from him?

Hashirama smiled sadly. “So I’ve been told. The offer still stands. Speak for as long as you want. I’ll listen.”

Madara remained quiet and turned to look at the sky. There was a few scattered, wispy clouds--ones that looked almost like cigarette smoke--drifting lazily by. It was peaceful, relaxing almost. Perhaps this was why the Nara always seemed so happy to waste their days away lazing under the shade of a tree and watching the clouds drift passed. It was a nice escape, even if his nightmares still hovered in the background--ghosts clamoring for attention--just waiting for the right moment to pounce when his guard was down and he least expected it.

“I wanted to die,” Madara said, speaking so quietly Hashirama almost missed it. “When I first woke up here, I didn’t care for anything. I just wanted rest.”

( _ He remembered the days spent in his crib, suffering from the memories of his past. He remembered the hopelessness, the quiet madness lingering on the edges of his mind. He remembered Itachi coming into his room and soothing his scarred psyche _ )

Hashirama looked grim at the words, but remained still as Madara continued. “It was Itachi who made me hold on, prevented me from just ending it then and there.”

( _ “I love you.” _ )

A bitter laugh escaped Madara’s lips as he closed his eyes and rested his forearm across his face. It was oh so cruel, that fate might give him such peace only for it all to be painfully ripped away, but it was oh so typical all the same. The world was unfair, it was cruel, it was full of hate and hurt. So long as there was winners there must also be losers. So long as there are lovers, the hated must remain as well.

“At first I thought that this life might be a punishment. I was mad during my last years, I remember. That all consuming hatred that burned in me, I’ll never forget it.” The words laid heavy on his tongue as he spoke, dripping from his mouth like liquid lead. He hated thinking of those later years spent in isolation, the cruel crooning sounding all too loud in his ears, echoed by his fallen family’s screams. “It wasn’t until I saw you again that I thought differently. Now… Now I’m back to wondering if the Kami hate me.”

He kept laughing quietly ( _ hysterically _ ) and felt tears run down his face. He hadn’t cried since the Uchiha Massacre, hadn’t allowed himself too. He was a Shinobi, among the best that there is--even if he was trapped in such a weak body. Shinobi were not allowed to show emotion. They weren’t allowed to put their feelings before the mission. It wasn’t allowed.

( _ Madara didn’t care _ )

He had stayed numb and near silent for two weeks. Two weeks of check ups at the hospital. Two weeks of interrogations by T&I. Two weeks of meetings with Sarutobi. Two weeks of repeating the same story over and over and over again.

He was so  _ tired _ .

“Hashirama?” Madara asked from his place on the ground. “What do we do now?”

Hashirama was quiet for long enough that Madara would have thought Hashirama was asleep had he been unable to sense the chakra circulating through Hashirama’s body. It was a soothing and familiar thing and Madara clung to that feeling, that familiarity. He felt weak for doing it, but he was past the point of worrying about appearing weak before Hashirama. As much as he would have thought to the contrary a mere 7 years previously, he trusted Hashirama with his life and he was certain Hashirama felt the same.

“Hashirama?” Madara questioned, moving his arm away from his eyes to look at his friend. The man ( _ boy _ ) still looked grim, though a pensive expression had entered his eyes.

“I think we should contact Saru, your criminal status be damned.” Hashirama finally stated.

Madara narrowed his eyes, wary of the prospect of revealing himself to a student of Tobirama’s. Wasn’t one of his students already responsible for the death of his family, for the exile of his brother? He was, however, willing to hear what Hashirama had to say. “Why?”

“Itachi mentioned the Akatsuki, an organization run by the man pretending to be you. This can’t possibly be good, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for any news and we can’t do that if we’re stuck in the academy pretending to be normal students,” said Hashirama. 

“On top of that, we need to be able to build up our strength quicker than we are right now and attending the academy and adhering to social niceties does nothing but slow us down in that respect. We need allies other than Itachi now that your brother is no longer in the village. As the current Hokage, Saru will have access to a spy network and all sorts of information that we will need. He would also be able to pull some strings to get us out of the academy and into a situation where we would be able to train more easily and regain our former abilities quicker. In no way do I think that our presence should be announced to the village--to do so would be foolish--but I do feel that Saru should be made aware of the situation now that the situation isn’t just the two of us having been reborn in a time of peace.”

Madara frowned as he watched Hashirama’s expression when he spoke. Hashirama revealed nothing other than the fact that he was speaking honestly and Madara could see Hashirama’s point. Before, revealing themselves to Sarutobi would have done nothing but hinder them. It wasn’t necessary to tell him and it was potentially dangerous to inform him. Madara was a wanted criminal--no matter if he had changed in recent years--and keeping up appearances with the Uchiha was important lest word get out something was wrong with Sasuke. Now, appearances with the Uchiha was no longer important and serious issues possibly leading to disaster had appeared. Because of this, the pros and cons of telling the Hokage had shifted.

He thought it over, turning the idea over in his head, and came to a decision. 

Madara took a deep breath through his mouth and let it out slowly through his nose. “Alright,” he said. “But not tonight. Tomorrow. First, I need to sleep.”

Hashirama smiled and nodded. “Of course, old friend.”

**Omake:**

Hashirama sighed and tugged at his hair as he stared in the mirror mournfully. “My hair…” he mumbled. Next to him, Madara refrained from rolling his eyes.

Hashirama’s bright blonde hair stuck up no matter what he did with it, no matter how many times he brushed it or tried to make it lie flat. It just refuded. To. Stay. Down.

“Is this how you always felt about your hair, Madara?”

“Hn.”

“I take back everything I’ve ever said about your hair.”

“Hn,”

“And your hair is staying so flat this time, too… It sticks up in the back a bit but grow it out and you won’t notice it at all!”

“Hn.”

“I bet growing my hair out wouldn’t fix the problem at all.”

“Hn.”

“It would probably end up looking like your hair used to…” Hashirama sighed and turned away from the mirror. Another day of trying to tame his hair, another day of failing to tame his hair. 

Hashirama missed his old hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)


	14. Chapter 14

The sound of his footsteps was absent when he walked. It would have been difficult to hear them if he did have them--he was walking through a crowd--but he walked silently out of habit more than anything else, trapped in his thoughts as he was.

( _ Like the ghosts that nipped at his heels _ )

Madara was going to tell the Hokage who he was today. 

He pressed his lips together, his jaw tightening. There wasn’t much left in this village anymore, not for him. For Hashirama it might have been amazing to see the way the village had grown since they had founded it, but all Madara could think of when he looked was all the mistakes that stared back at him. About how he would have seen this place destroyed, nothing more than a ruined, desolate landscape unfit for humans to live in. He would have seen the place vanished, nothing more than a note in a history book. Forgotten.

( _ Drip drip drip, blood fell off the blade. Another corpse on the ground, another added to the pile. Climb, they said, and so he did, until he stood at the top of a mountain of gore _ )

He drew a deep breath, settling his nerves. The outcome of today’s confrontation would change everything. Whether that meant Madara would be on the run again, dead, or placed in a position where he could more easily regain his strength remained to be seen. Madara wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful--this was one of Tobirama’s students after all ( _ Tobirama who hated the Uchiha, Tobirama who killed Izuna, Tobirama who drove him away _ )--but Hashirama was feeling confident about it, and something needed to change. 

Things were moving. Madara couldn’t see the direction they were going, couldn’t see what lied at the end of the road. The false Madara worried him, and he remained fearful for Itachi. Just 13 years old, and a member of an organization of S-rank nukenin. One misstep would mean his death. Should anyone discover why he did what he did, should he offend the wrong person, someone he couldn’t beat, then…

Madara realized he was clenching his fists and forced them to lay limply at his side again. He could feel nail scores in his palm, the pain a soft burning in the back of his mind. ( _ Drip drip drip _ )

Hashirama stood at the entrance to the Hokage tower, leaned against the wall and watching the people who passed him by. Most payed him no heed, but some shot distrustful glances Hashirama’s way. Damnable prejudice. ( _ He hated it _ )

“Naruto,” he greeted quietly. 

“Sasuke,” Hashirama responded in kind, stepping away from the wall. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants and nodded towards the building. “Shall we go?”

“Hn.” 

They made their way inside and to the reception room. It didn’t take much to grant them an audience--Sasuke had been granted something of a priority because of the massacre--and soon enough they were being lead to the Hokage’s office. 

The doors opened without a sound and they were lead inside. Madara habitually looked the room over. It hadn’t changed since the last time he had been there, three days ago. 

“Hello, Sandaime-sama!” Hashirama greeted, a grin on his face and one hand raised in a wave. The old man behind the desk, Sarutobi Hiruzen, smiled at Hashirama, appearing all the while as if he was a grandfather indulging his favorite grandson.

“Hello Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun. You asked to see me?” Sarutobi raised a questioning brow.

“We wanted to speak to you about the Uchiha Massacre,” Madara spoke for the first time since entering the room. 

Sarutobi gave no visible reaction other than an understanding nod. He motioned for them to take a seat, and Madara noted the barely there chakra of the ANBU vanishing.

“What would you like to speak about, Sasuke-kun?” Sarutobi asked. He folded his hands on the desk, old eyes staring right at Madara, at  _ Sasuke _ .

The ANBU were gone. A glance at Hashirama--the better sensor of the two, damn him--confirmed that. If nothing had changed since Tobirama was Hokage, then there would be seals around the office to prevent spying on the people within. They should be safe to speak however they wished. Should.

( _ There were so many ways this could go wrong. He ached for a better plan, for a better action to take. He wished he could just kill someone and have the entire issue go away. BUt that wasn’t how things worked, how they rarely ever did. He would just have to make the best of what he had to work with, and keep moving forward with what he had _ )

Madara closed his eyes. It was time for a gamble. If this failed, then everything they had built for themselves since being reborn risked being snatched away. There was only one way to make certain Sarutobi would listen to him from beginning to end, one way to make certain no one would hear the secrets he was about to spill.

He opened his eyes, Mangekyo swirling in their depths, and pulled the Hokage into Tsukuyomi.

A breeze blew past them, sweeping through the tall grass. A battle cry sounded, and Senju warriors shot forward, fighting with the Uchiha just as they once had.  _ Clang _ , the weapons sounded. Fire blew past them, the heat enough to blister any who got too close. The shouting was loud, each battle cry and scream seeming to echo in their ears. ( _ Lives were ended, one by one _ )

Sarutobi stood in the middle of it all, alone. His eyes had widened, and he stood now rather than sat. He quickly got into a defensive stance, expecting the figures around him to attack, and seemed surprised when they didn’t, continuing on with their battle as if Sarutobi wasn’t even there. Madara watched him, his own presence hidden completely, and smirked when he felt the exact moment Sarutobi tried and failed to break out of the Genjutsu.

“It won’t work,” Madara told him. His voice was deeper than it was as Sasuke. He was Madara here, in this realm, in this world of his own creation. “This is Tsukuyomi. It cannot be broken by anyone other than the caster.”

“Who are you?” Madara applauded Sarutobi for sounding as calm as he did. Madara knew many shinobi would be panicking at this point, blindly lashing out to try and free themselves. ( _ “Whats going on? What is this place? Where am I? No! No! Stop it! Please! Don’t!” _ ) Sarutobi merely calmly assessed the situation instead. He was like Tobirama in that aspect. The thought made Madara frown.

“That’s a good question,” Madara told him. He allowed himself to appear behind Sarutobi, wearing his old robes, but not his armor, his gunbai at his back. His eyes glowed red with the color of the sharingan, the signature of his clan. Sarutobi whipped around, arms raised and ready to defend an incoming attack. Upon seeing the familiar figure, he froze.

“You-” No further sound escaped from Sarutobi’s lips. Madara smirked. 

“Me,” he mocked.

( _ Hiruzen had never known what to make of Madara when he was young. He seemed to get along well with Hashirama-sama, and he was strong, but the man wasn’t someone he could approach and Tobirama-sensei didn’t seem to like him at all. There were too many whispers, too many rumors, too many reasons for Hiruzen to run. _

_ He never forgot him, however. Madara wasn’t the type of man who could be forgotten. Hiruzen remembered the way he stood tall and proud, of the blood lust in his eyes whenever someone suggested a spar. He remembered the man’s jutsu’s, the way he and Hashirama had seemed almost like gods _ )

“You’re dead.” Sarutobi sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than he was stating a statement. “How are you--You're supposed to be dead.”

“Hn. You and I are of the same opinion then.” Madara walked forward, crossing his arms. Sarutobi tensed, ever so slightly, at his approach. “I’ve spent years pondering how it is possible for me to be alive. I still haven’t come to a conclusion.”

“Madara.” Sarutobi sounded faint. He looked rather pale, too. It make Madara want to laugh, ( _ this was far too amusing _ ) but he held it in. Now was not a time to mess around with this man. In this world, Madara held the reigns, but the moment they left Madara was at Sarutobi’s mercy. Scaring Sarutobi wouldn’t do well for Madara’s continued survival, and he had no doubt Hashirama would get dragged into things as well should Madara mess this up. “Why are you here?”

“To show you the truth--” Madara stared Sarutobi straight in the eye. “--of Madara and Hashirama. To show you the truth of Naruto and Sasuke.”

Sarutobi’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What have you done with them?”

“Nothing. I have not harmed either of them. They are safe, so long as you do not harm them yourself.” It was an odd feeling to talk about himself in third person. He had done it before, on an infiltration mission where the topic of the Uchiha had come up. He gave nothing away then, and he gave nothing away now. 

( _ Only Hashirama and Izuna had ever-- _ )

“Is that a threat?” Sarutobi’s voice was low, deep, and dangerous. Madara got the feeling that had he really been holding Naruto and Sasuke hostage, Sarutobi wouldn’t hesitate to attack him to get them back. Madara itched to allow the misconception, to leap into battle like the warriors surrounding them, to test just how far this student of Tobirama’s had come. He refrained, no matter how much he wanted to dance, for now was not the time.

“No. Merely a fact. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.”

Sarutobi looked at him oddly at that, glancing around them once more. The battle raged on, exactly as Madara remembered them being. “Where are we?”

“The past.” Madara turned his head, watching a younger him fight with a younger Hashirama. They were both 14, still so young, and already so strong. Even at that point, people whispered their names when no one else could hear them. ( _ The beginnings of a legend, the basis for a war _ ) “A past a hundred years gone.”

The battle vanished around them, the figures turning to smoke and resettling into a picture of a river. The river. The one Hashirama and Madara had always gone to meet up at, in their first life. It was  _ their  _ river. 

“When we first met, we had no idea who the other was.” A young Madara and a young Hashirama, younger than in the previous memory, spared with one another, dashing up and down the riverside. It was nostalgic, watching them. There was no weight of responsibility on their shoulders. When they met up at the river, they could just be themselves. Two kindred spirits, having found themselves a place to be whoever they wanted to be. “He was ‘just Hashirama’, and I was ‘just Madara’. Then came the day when I was followed by my brother. My father found out who I was meeting, and ordered me to kill him. That was when I found out he was a Senju.”

The sparing children vanished, replaced by another version of themselves, standing on opposite sides of the bank.

( _ “I know it’s right off the bat, but how about we just skip stones instead of exchanging greetings?” _ )

The stones, the hasty retreat, the fight between their fathers, their brothers.  It played out before his eyes, exactly as he remembered it, right down to the last detail. He remembered throwing that stone to block the sword from hitting his brother, he remembered Hashirama doing the same. Those stones--those stupid, stupid stones...

( _ “I’ll never forgive anyone who tries to hurt my little brother.” _ )

“Why are you showing me this?” Sarutobi asked. Madara glanced at him. Sarutobi had relaxed, minutely, watching the scene with fascination in his eyes. 

“Why indeed?” He turned his gaze back to the river. “Perhaps I wanted to show someone. Perhaps I was just feeling nostalgic. Perhaps there is another reason entirely.”

He dismissed the scene, leaving the world around them an empty black. “I came to speak with you, Sarutobi. Had it been up to me, we would not be having this conversation. Unfortunately, I have some rather convincing company, and they managed to talk me into this.”

“Company?”

( _ “Hashirama!” Ground cracked and broke, trees uprooted themselves. _

_ “Madara!” Weapons clanged, shuriken flew, and they danced across the land _ )

A roar echoed around them, chilling and cold. The ground beneath them lay broken, the river had turned into a waterfall. This was the Valley of the End, the air so thick with power it was hard to breathe. The landscape lay broken, shattered, and Madara smiled.

“Hn. Company.”

The battle raged on, the Kyuubi latching onto one of Hashirama’s wooden dragons. They wrestled and the wood wrapped around the fox, before the wood was smashed with the Kyuubi’s claws.

This scene, too, vanished. In its place stood the village, the view beautiful from where they stood on the cliff. Hashirama and Madara both stood there, talking with one another, smiling.

( _ “The Village Hidden in the Leaves. How about we call it that?” _

_ “Really, Madara. You’re just calling it what it looks like! Be a bit more creative than that!” _

_ “And how is ‘Konoha’ any less creative than ‘Hokage’?” _ )

Sarutobi kept watching. He had passed incredjulice, passed disbelief. He seemed almost resigned, exhaustion leaking from his every pore. “It’s Hashirama-sama, isn’t it. Your company.”

“Hn. It is.”

Sarutobi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “How? Why haven’t I known this before?”

Madara changed the scene again, ageing the village that stood before them. It looked just as it did today, shinobi jumping across rooftops, people wandering the streets. In the place of Madara and Hashirama stood Sasuke and Naruto, in the exact same spot as before.

“Reincarnation, as far as we can tell.” Madara walked forward, walking around the tiny figures of Naruto and Sasuke. “Neither of us are quite sure how it works, only that we have ended up the way we are. That Senju Hashirama became Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Madara became Uchiha Sasuke. We took great pains to hide our identities. I’m not surprised you haven’t noticed who we are. No one else figured it out--not until we told them at least.”

“Who else knows?”

“Itachi. We told him a mere few weeks ago.”

Sarutobi remained silent after that, staring at Madara, Naruto, and Sasuke. He seemed to be deep in thought, and Madara let him think. They had a while yet before Madara would have to let this genjutsu go. They had time.

After what felt like an age ( _ A mere instant in the realm world, no longer than the blink of an eye, the beat of a hummingbird's wings _ ), Sarutobi spoke again. “Why now?”

Madara tilted his head back, considering. A breeze blew past them, the clouds drifted lazily overhead. How much to tell, how much to tell. “Things are moving,” he said. “My clan is dead, both Hashirama and I are alone in this village. An organization of Nukenin is on the rise, and Hashirama and I cannot let things continue on as they are.”

Sarutobi’s gaze sharpened. “Organization?”

“Hn.” Just how much did this Hokage know? How much has Itachi told him?

Sarutobi was silent for another moment longer before speaking again. “May I speak to Hashirama-sama?”

“Hn. Depends, are you going to kill me?” Madara asked.

“Are you going to destroy the village?” Sarutobi shot back.

“No.”

The Sandaime watched him carefully, gauging his reactions, before nodding. “No. I won’t.”

Madara let go of the Genjutsu, allowing them both to wake in the Hokage’s office once more. He deactivated his sharingan, tapping Hashirama’s hand twice to signal that Sarutobi knew.

Hashirama grinned. “Hello, Saru,” he greeted. “Madara told you?”

Sarutobi sighed. “So he did. Hello, Hashirama-sama.”

**Omake:**

Kakashi browsed the shelves of the library, lazily reading the titles of the books there. Why he was looking at books about poetry, he didn’t know. But he was.

There was a book near the end of the shelf that was pushed into the back. It was an older book and seemed like someone had thrown it around some, so scruffed it was. The poor book was nearly falling apart! Kakashi pulled it out, wondering what it could possibly be written in it. It had to be something interesting if someone hated it enough to throw it around.

_ “Spring Showers: A Collection of Spring Themed Poetry by Uchiha Madara” _

Kakashi blinked at the title. “Madara was a poet? Huh. You learn something new every day.”

**Omake:**

Madara and Hashirama wandered through Madara’s old study, sorting through the scrolls and cleaning away the dust. There was a lot to go through, so it was a tedious process.

Hashirama picked up a scroll. It was an old one, buried under a pile of Madara’s old journals. He opened it, curious to see what was written inside. There was no title on it, so he would need to read it to figure out what it was.

_ “The Uchiha by Madara _

_ Fanning blazing flames _

_ Burning land with white hot fire- _

_ The strong uchiwa” _

Hashirama blinked. “A poem?”

Instantly, Madara was by Hashirama’s side and grabbed the scroll from Hashirama’s hands. “Give me that!”

He flipped through the book with lightning speed, before proceeding to burn it to ash using a fire jutsu. Hashirama sweatdropped. “Was that necessary?” he asked, amused.

“It was absolutely necessary,” Madara said with a completely serious expression. “No one should ever be allowed to read  _ that _ monstrosity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://metronomeihear.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Important information:
> 
> There will be NO PAIRINGS. I will admit, however, to have a fondness for the HashiMada pairing. Due to this, there may be some slashy undertones scattered throughout the fic. It is not my intention to pair them, as I am writing this as an epic friendship, but if you want to read the story that way, feel free. I certainly won't stop you.
> 
> Hashirama as Naruto still has his wood release. It is my headcanon that Canon!Naruto probably had it and just never found out because he didn't think it was a possibility. This headcanon was brought about both by Canon!Naruto's denseness and the fact that all previous Ashura incarnations (that we know of) had the wood release.
> 
> Madara as Sasuke still has the Sharingan. The Canon explanation for the sharingan's manifestation is as follows: The sharingan manifests when an Uchiha suffers from trauma. This trauma creates a special type of chakra that affects their eyes, therefore forming the Sharingan. Because Madara retains all of his memories, despite him now being in Sasuke's body, he gets to have his Mangekyo sharingan. He does, however, NOT have an Eternal Mangekyo sharingan, as that would require him switching eyes with someone else. He also retains his old Mangekyo pattern, as I happen to like the appearance of Madara's Mangekyo better than I do Sasuke's Mangekyo.


End file.
